The Woman and the Dragon in Premodern Art 9789048555505

Table of contents :
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Dragon
2. The Cave and the Womb: The Myth of Cadmus and the Myth of Apollo and Python
3. Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa
4. Medea – The Holy Woman and the Witch
5. Eve and Lilith – Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dragon
6. Saint Margaret – Taming the Dragon
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

The Woman and the Dragon in Premodern Art

The Woman and the Dragon in Premodern Art

Sharon Khalifa-Gueta

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Medea Sarcophagus. Photo by Iulia Molnar Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 357 2 e-isbn 978 90 4855 550 5 doi 10.5117/9789463723572 nur 654 © Sharon Khalifa-Gueta / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2023 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.



Table Of Contents

Acknowledgments 7 Introduction 9 Aims of the Book 10 Outline 11 Methodology 14 State of the Arts and Theoretical Background 17 Key concepts 20 1. The Dragon

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2. The Cave and the Womb: The Myth of Cadmus and the Myth of Apollo and Python Cadmos – Following the Cow to the Cave Apollo and Python and/or Delphyne – The Oracle and the Dragon Python and Drakōn – The Dragon is the Goddess and the Cave

47 48 71 86

3. Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa The Eligible Wife: Andromeda and Perseus Medusa – The Dangerous Woman The Permitted Versus the Forbidden Woman

89 91 109 122

4. Medea – The Holy Woman and the Witch The Myth of Medea The Healer and the Witch: Medea in Iolcus Feeding the Dragon: Medea in Colchis Serpents in the Soul: Medea in Corinth Sin and Repentance: Representations of Medea on Sarcophagi The Analogy between Women and Dragons

127 129 139 144 158 176 183

5. Eve and Lilith — Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dragon Eve – Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dragon Lilith – The She-Demon of Childbirth

193 194 209

6. Saint Margaret – Taming the Dragon 227 The legenda 229 The Iconography of Saint Margaret from the Tenth to Fifteenth Century 235

The Dissonance between Literary and Visual Sources The Role of Saint Margaret in Childbirth Rituals

261 264

Conclusion 273 Bibliography 281 Primary Sources 281 Secondary Sources 289 Catalogues, Dictionaries, and Encyclopedias 323 Electronic Sources 324 Index 327

Acknowledgments Although the writing of this book was a highly personal endeavor, it took a village to write it, and I feel privileged to experience gratitude for so many people. First and foremost, no words can suffice to describe the extraordinary support I was offered by Prof. Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby, who served as the advisor for my doctoral dissertation. While some teachers instruct, correct and suggest, others can help you grow wings: Both personally and professionally, Nirit granted me an experience of freedom of thought, encouragement and support that I could have not imagined previously. This study would not have been possible without her belief in me and my research, while enabling me to be a better researcher than I had thought I could be. In the course of my doctoral studies at the Arts Department, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, I was fortunate to be surrounded by faculty members who were warm, remarkably helpful, and extremely professional. Particularly Prof. Daniel Unger offered precious advice, and Prof. Emeritus Haim Finkelstein, who is as profound as an oracle, among others. I am also thankful for the assistance and advice of many true friends and colleagues: Dr. Esty Kravitz-Lurie, Dr. Anastazja Buttitta, Dr. Emma Gashinsky, and Dr. Dafna Nissim, to name but a few. Additional scholars and friends whose support I was blessed with include Prof. Arlette David, who was both a colleague and a friend, truly making me a better human being. I am also thankful for the kind support of Dr. Yael Young, Dr. Irina Chernetsky, Dr. Bat-ami Artzi, Prof. Bonnie Kutbay, Dr. Inbal Ben-Asher Gitler, Mrs Sharona Tsadok Rosenbluth, Mrs. Tsophit Gilead, Mrs. Amanda Smulowitz, and Mrs Linda Bar-On. I am extremely grateful to Prof. Adi Erlich, my post-doctorial advisor, Dr. Emma Maayan Fanar, and Prof. Joseph Ziegler, for the support I have received at the department of art history at the University of Haifa’s School of History. I am also grateful for the support of the Rotenstreich Scholarship for Excellent Doctoral Students in the Humanities, and the Spinoza Post-Doctoral Scholarship for excellence in History and Arts, whose financial support made the writing of this book possible. Prof. Daniel Ogden’s support and confidence in this project were also a source of much encouragement and inspiration. I am especially thankful to Talya Halkin, my wonderful editor, for our work together, which was an inspiring process in and of itself. Last, but not least, I wish to express my gratitude to my beloved family, without which I could not have traveled on this path. Arnon Gueta, my dearest and most wonderful spouse, love of my life, and best friend, who supported me in every way imaginable. My children – Lahav and Coral – were more patient with me than

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any child should ever be. The bright light shining in their eyes when I shared my research with them warmed my heart and offered fuel for the journey. I am also grateful to my parents for the diverse sources of knowledge they provided me with to satisfy my curiosity as a child, and for their assistance throughout the years.

Introduction What could a Libyan princess, a Corinthian witch and a female saint from Antioch possibly have in common? Although these figures may well appear unrelated, they all share a similarly intimate acquaintance with dragons. Engaging in an in-depth exploration of representations of Andromeda, Medea, St. Margaret, and additional mythological figures, this book seeks to elucidate visual manifestations of the motif of the woman and the dragon, whose roots go back to Near Eastern, ancient Egyptian, neo-palatial Minoan, and Greco-Roman antiquity. Yet despite its rich and complex history, this motif has received almost no attention as a distinct topic worthy of scholarly examination, and has been largely subsumed into the study of male dragon-slayers and their representations. By shifting the spotlight to the female protagonists of these archetypal visual narratives,1 the current study offers a different perspective, delineating the unique meanings pertaining to their relationships with dragons. One of the most remarkable aspects of such relationships is that, in contrast to their male counterparts, women do not fight dragons.2 Instead, they are depicted as communicating, collaborating, assimilating into, and fusing with these mythological creatures, in ways that are both benevolent and malevolent. At the core of this investigation is the revelation that the encounter between women and dragons is a holy one, which long predates the dualistic Christian conception of good and evil and the association of dragons with the latter category. Nevertheless, as the discussion unfolding throughout the book will reveal, this pagan conception of the relationship between women and dragons in Mediterranean antiquity endured in Western Europe throughout the early modern period. In analyzing each of the figures and situations examined in the course of this study, I attend both to the meaning of this union, and to the individual significance 1 Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (New York: Harcourt, Brace; Jovanovich, 1982); Alvin A. Lee and Jean O’Grady, eds., Northrop Frye on Religion: Excluding the Great Code and Words with Power (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000); Robyn Cadwallader, Three Methods for Reading the Thirteenth-Century Seinte Marherete: Archetypal, Semiotic, and Deconstructionist (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008), pp. 16–26, 239–249. 2 One exception to this statement is the Ugarit goddess Anat of the seventh century BCE, who is said to have fought a dragon, see Andrée Herdner, ed., Corpus des tablettes en cuneiformes alphabetiques: decouvertes a Ras Shamra-Ugarit de 1929 a 1939 (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1963): 3.3.35–4.47. Neil Forsyth, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), p. 61.

Khalifa-Gueta, S., The Woman and the Dragon in Premodern Art. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023. doi 10.5117/9789463723572_intro

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of each, while questioning the nature of their relationship. As this book reveals, dragons are closely related to great fertility goddesses, and are thus associated with ancient matriarchal concepts that continued to influence and challenge patriarchal structures over the course of many centuries. As the analysis focuses on visual representations and material culture, this motif shows the interaction between the two is one of communication, collaboration, assimilation, and even fusion, but rarely animosity. Although this study is based on visual materials, it relies in part on literary texts, and discusses the dissonance between visual and textual depictions that will be studied: occasionally, the hostility between the woman and the dragon that is present in textual accounts, yet is absent from their visual counterparts. Related visual symbols, such as the cave and the tree, will be shown to enrich and elaborate this motif by embedding it with additional layers of meaning, and revealing both its complexity and the changes it underwent as it resonated in different cultural environments.

Aims of the Book The primary goal of this book is to illuminate the importance of visual materials whose importance pertains to a large geographical area over a long historical period, while addressing profound cultural concepts and concerns. Although it relies extensively on studies of literary and historical sources, the investigation unfolding throughout the book centers on visual materials, and is based on the study of hundreds of images. Forming a bridge connecting written legends, artists and recipients, these images relayed information more effectively than any other means, binding together mythical narratives with social, religious and gender-related concerns in changing cultural contexts. In some cases, artistic representations reveal different aspects of a given narrative, which are unaccounted for in the surviving written text. For instance, the image of the maiden calmly seated on the dragon that confronts Cadmos on a red figured bell-krater dated to 443–430 BCE, and now at the Metropolitan Museum, New York (fig. 8), is unattested for in literary sources, while making manifest profound ideas concerning the intimate and sacred relationship between them. Ever since antiquity, artistic imagery has migrated from one medium to another, extending in some cases over long periods and thus allowing art historians to make large temporal and cultural leaps, while tracing the evolution of a single topic in order to acquire a wider perspective concerning the subject in question. The main branch of dragon studies revolves around the interaction between a man and a dragon, which is a central recurrent theme from antiquity onwards in Mediterranean cultures, as elaborated in Chapter One’s discussion of the dragon-slayer

Introduc tion 

topos.3 This topos, in which the dragon holds an important symbolic function, remained highly popular over many centuries. The related motif of the woman and the dragon will be examined in depth in the current study as building on the separate topos of the dragon-slayer, while developing as a distinct motif in several different cultural contexts This exploration will offer a detailed micro-analysis of specific figures and themes, while providing an outline of more general meanings related to this motif, and tracing the cultural concepts embedded in the visual materials. By identifying the evolving meanings and concepts attached to and embedded in the motif of the woman and the dragon, as well as changing cultural stereotypes related to their union, this study forms an axis on which further studies of this motif can be structured. The book will also trace the formation of stereotypes concerning women and dragons and the context for their development, such as the erotic stereotype that immediately comes to mind when imagining a woman with a dragon. This study provides methodological tools for approaching images and stories concerning women and dragons differently than narratives centered on men and dragons.

Outline The book is composed of six chapters, which follow the chronological development of this motif from the fifth century BCE to the fifteenth century. Chapter One is devoted to the image of the dragon as it evolved from perceptions concerning snakes/serpents, exploring the different symbolic meanings that have accrued surrounding this mythological creature based on the biological and physiological characteristics of existing reptiles. This chapter then goes on to attend to the topos of the dragon-slayer and its evolution from Mediterranean antiquity to early modern Europe, thus offering a basis for a comparative understanding of its relationship to the motif of the woman and the dragon, whose study must be approached independently and using different tools. The motif of the woman and the dragon is an extension of the dragon-slayer topos, yet as this study insists, images of women and dragons should be approached independently and using different tools. The second to fourth chapters examine three types pertaining to this motif in an ancient Greco-Roman artistic context, with forays into Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Minoan art. I devote an entire chapter to each type, focusing in every case on one or more mythical figure. Chapter Two examines the visual interaction between dragons and holy female figures, as exemplified by goddesses, oracles, priestesses, and mythological female 3

For the definition of topos see, “topos,” in Oxford English Dictionary: https://www.oed.com/.

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protagonists and their sacred collaboration with dragons, focusing on the myth of Cadmos and the myth of Apollo and Python. This chapter considers images depicting the collaboration of a woman with a dragon as relating to sacred oracular events and fertility goddesses, hence the definition of this type as “the holy woman.” In this context, I turn to the myth of Cadmos and its visual iconography, exploring images of Cadmos confronting a woman seated on the dragon Drakōn. The related myth of Apollo and Python/Delphyne further probes the ritualistic functions of the Delphic Pythia as reflecting the combat between Apollo and the dragon Python, and as related to “the previous owner” myth of Delphi, which asserts that Apollo appropriated a temple previously dedicated to the Great Mother goddesses Ge/Gaia or Themis. An investigation of ceremonies involving sacred dragons establishes the similarly sacred status of the women who served, communicated and collaborated with them in Greek antiquity. The discussion suggests that these rituals originated in the cults of Great Mother goddesses of fertility, whose endurance conflicted with the later patriarchal hierarchy of Greek gods. This chapter also addresses several related signs that consistently accompany these figures, most notably the cow and the cave, exploring in depth the symbolic and ritual functions of this site, which was understood in ancient Mediterranean cultures as the womb of a Great Mother goddess. Chapter Three contrasts the second female type, “the good wife,” as exemplified by Andromeda in the Perseus myth, with “the dangerous woman,” as represented by Medusa. This chapter follows the sequence of the Perseus myth, which includes the encounter of a male hero with two opposite types of women who form unions with dragons. The analysis of the Andromeda myth investigates the meaning of the theme of “the bride of death,” the concern with marriage and fertility symbolized in her iconography, and the structure of “the good woman” type, who must be detached from the dragon in order to become eligible for marriage. The discussion then goes on to examine the mythological narratives and visual typologies related to Medusa, examining this figure through the prism of feminist studies and gender-related concerns, and identifying in her imagery residues of earlier matriarchal concepts, which explain the many contradictions inherent to her representation. Medusa’s iconography is identified with the type I defined as “the dangerous woman,” or as “the holy-defiled woman,” whose sanctity was sexually violated. The comparison between Andromeda and Medusa highlights the juxtaposition between “good” and “bad” women in a Greco-Roman cultural context, leading to an understanding of Medusa as an emblem of a woman too powerful to exist with the patriarchal order. Medusa’s image thus elicited both fear and a desire to dominate the entity representing the fusion of a woman and a dragon. This third type is a woman who was once holy and united with a dragon. In this case, however, their collaboration with it is interrupted, usually by a sexual event that defiles the woman and threatens

Introduc tion 

the social order. This type, which I call the holy-defiled woman, is also exemplified by Medea, Eve and Lilith. Chapter Four turns to explore the multiple binary meanings of the figure of Medea, another instance of the holy-defiled woman, while probing the meanings of defilement and redemption, the bias against women in general and particularly toward women in unusual positions of power, and the stereotypes attached to this motif. This chapter analyzes a number of myths pertaining to Medea, while pondering her relationship with dragons. It suggests that she was originally associated with the holy woman type, while underscoring her powerful, dangerous, and destructive abilities, which are associated with the prototype of the witch. As I will demonstrate, these characteristics form the basis of what I call the “Medea bias,” referring to the perception of powerful women as dangerous and destructive. Medea’s connection with the Colchis dragon reveals the tree as another complementary symbol related to this motif, as seen in depictions of the Colchis dragon wrapped around the tree with the Golden Fleece. The Medea myth as represented in Corinthian art and literature also suggests her function in apotropaic rituals of children and infant protection, and in relation to formulations of salvation, as well as her contribution to the creation of stereotypes of women as unrestrained and irrational, and specifically to the concept of “serpents in the soul” – the idea that women are imbued with passion and rage. Chapter Five turns to explore the visual culture of Christianity from late antiquity to the early modern period, centering on representations of Eve as another iconographic construct building on the ancient fusion of a woman and a dragon. As this chapter reveals, images of Eve were designed as a reaction against certain elements of this motif, while continuing to encompass them. This case study, which begins with an analysis of early Christian sarcophagi, marks the first stages in the transformation and Christianization of the motif. The discussion goes on to probe the later split of Eve into images of Eve and Lilith, and further reveals how concepts, themes, and symbols pertaining to social stereotypes of women and to childbirth rituals continued and evolved over the centuries. In exploring images of Lilith and related fertility demons, the discussion draws an evolutionary line from the apotropaic functions of Medusa and Medea images to the representations of fertility demons that flourished in medieval and early modern folk beliefs in Western Europe. As I suggest, the anguiped or dracontopede imagery representing the fusion of a woman and a serpent, which symbolized the threat to childbirth and infants while offering apotropaic protection against them, is the same imagery depicted in the Eden iconography. Chapter Six investigates the iconography and iconology of Saint Margaret, identifying several visual patterns and types and examining deviations from them. It outlines the saint’s hagiography and the development of her visual typology

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from the tenth to the fifteenth century. The iconography of Saint Margaret is also compared to that of Saint George and the Archangel Michael, further accentuating the differences between them while attending to other female saints depicted with dragons. As I argue, the popularity of visual images portraying Margaret as emerging from the body of the dragon, and the refutation of that scenario in literary sources, indicates a dissonance stemming from the affiliation of the saint’s visual representations with ancient concepts and rituals embedded in the motif of the woman and the dragon. The role of Saint Margaret in childbirth rituals further emphasizes this gap by turning the discussion to the saint’s cultic role as the protector of childbirth and infants. This series of case studies, selected from a remarkably extensive corpus, offers the most striking and salient examples of the motif in question. It provides both a synchronic and a diachronic investigation of the motif in the Greco-Roman and Western European cultural context, while considering additional, related cultural contexts and locations in which this mental construct developed in the realms of religious and folk rituals, philosophical inquiry, political debate, material culture and literature. Such an investigation sheds light on the convergent structures that may have developed in relation to the same mental concept.

Methodology By examining a wide range of artistic mediums and material artifacts, and in some cases relating them to literary texts, over a time period spanning close to two millennia, this study offers multiple perspectives on the subject in question, while relying on a number of methodologies. Since the motif of the woman and the dragon is a category distinct from the dragon-slayer topos, which gives rise to a disparate set of signs, typology, iconography and iconology, are all recruited to examine this motif. Chapter One analyzes the evolution of the concept of the dragon, which predates the modern separation between a mythical, imaginary creature and the zoological creature known as a “snake/serpent.” As this chapter reveals, literary references to “dragons” appeared at the same time as visual representations of serpents or other reptilians and marine creatures. The discussion delineates how the biological qualities of serpents gave rise to the symbolic qualities of dragons. My research builds on a number of different approaches, combining the study of iconography and iconology with Structural and semiotic methods. Reliance on these approaches allows for the inspection of minute details with highly specific meanings, alongside the detection of wide-ranging patterns, which together form a rich and compelling tapestry depicting the visual and conceptual symbiosis of women and dragons.

Introduc tion 

Aby Warburg and Erwin Panofsky’s pioneering studies of iconography and iconology, which have been further elaborated on by later scholars, both attend to the reception of ancient signs and motifs in early modern art. 4 The iconographic method that seeks visual patterns and deviations from these patterns, and the iconological method that looks for the cultural-historical context of these patterns, are both essential to this study, and involve studying the motif as the basic visual pattern, while examining both consistency and diversity in its representation. An iconological approach is applied when exploring additional visual or textual evidence that can shed light on the meaning of the images. Of particular interest to this study is Warburg’s analysis of “pathos,” a term he uses to refer to an indirect, implicit reception of ancient concepts in a later cultural context.5 Hans Belting’s combined study of iconography and anthropology, and his theory concerning the symbolic placement of an image as an ontology capable of substituting for a lost essence,6 is particularly valuable for studying instances in which the dragon functions as a symbolic substitute for a Great Goddess. This approach is relevant to the discussion evolving throughout this book – a perspective that stresses art can reveal pathways of meaning and concepts that remain elusive in the domain of literature, while coming to the fore in the domain of art history. In deconstructing the motif of the woman and dragon and analyzing it as a codified topos, this study compares and contrasts visual evidence found in ancient art, breaking up the visual motif into signs, studying the patterns in which one sign is 4 Erwin Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955); Aby Warburg, The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity: Contributions to the Cultural History of the European Renaissance, intro. Kurt W. Forster, trans. David Britt (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1999); Christopher D. Johnson, Memory, Metaphor, and Aby Warburg’s Atlas of Images (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012); Georges Didi-Huberman, The Surviving Image: Phantoms of Time and Time of Phantoms; Aby Warburg’s History of Art, trans. Harvey L. Mendelsohn (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017). Newer studies that follow this approach are exemplified by Barbara Baert, Ann-Sophie Lehmann, Jenke Van Den Akkerveken, and Niels Schalley, New Perspectives in Iconology: Visual Studies and Anthropology (Brussels: Academic and Scientific Publishers, 2011); Lena Liepe, “The Study of the Iconography and Iconology of Medieval Art: A Historiographic Survey,” in The Locus of Meaning in Medieval Art: Iconography, Iconology, and Interpreting the Visual Imagery of the Middle Ages, ed. Lena Liepe (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2019), pp. 16–34. For reception studies of ancient art in renaissance art, see Luba Freedman, The Revival of the Olympian Gods in Renaissance Art (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Mina Gregori, ed., In the Light of Apollo: Italian Renaissance and Greece, 22 December 2003–31 March 2004 (Milan: Silvana; Cinisello Balsamo; Athens: Hellenic Culture Organization, 2003); Phyllis P. Bober, Ruth Rubinstein, and Susan Woodford, Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture: A Handbook of Sources (London: Harvey Miller, 2010). 5 Aby Warburg, Gesammelte schriften (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1932), II, pp. 443–449; Ernst H. Gombrich, Aby Warburg: An Intellectual Biography, comm. Fritz Saxl (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1986), p. 179. 6 Warburg, The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity; Didi-Huberman, The Surviving Image, pp. 67–173; Hans Belting, An Anthropology of Images: Picture, Medium, Body, trans. Thomas Dunlap (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011).

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replaced by another, identifying typologies, and looking for additional meanings embedded in the motif. Although often critiqued, Lévi-Strauss’ Structuralist method, which identifies similarities among related myths and then seeks to expand their connection to additional myths and life experiences, and broadens the scope of their understanding by delineating their structure, remains an effective way of understanding myths and their role in society. The current study makes use of the Structuralist process of disassembling the visual makeup of a myth and widening the scope of investigation to related myths and rituals, while focusing on their visual manifestations. Anthropology also serves as a point of reference in the examination of rituals and folk traditions associated with the motif, with a focus on magical artifacts.7 Chris Knight’s article “Lévi-Strauss and the Dragon: Mythologiques Reconsidered in the Light of an Australian Aboriginal Myth” has successfully examined the advantages and disadvantages of the Structuralist method, demonstrating how each interpreter can weave the evidence differently and obtain dissimilar results.8 Thus, the current investigation also applies a semiotic method, which requires consideration of all the surviving material evidence that can be obtained in order to create a hypothesis. The semiotic (or semiology) method consists of the study of signs and symbols by disassembling single signs, entire sentences (textual or visual) and complete images. This study disassembles the selected images into smaller units and performs a microanalysis into the meaning of a single unit, such as the cave, and then reassembles the image while identifying how a single sign’s meaning impacts the interpretation of other related signs in the same image. It is based on the exploration of hundreds of images, belonging to a rich and relatively large corpus of material evidence, in order to arrive at the most accurate interpretation possible. The signs chosen as the focus of my analysis throughout the book were selected due to their widespread recurrence in this corpus of images, along some atypical depictions that were selected in order to shed light on the more prevalent types. 7 Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, trans. Claire Jacobson and Broole Grundfest Schoepf (New York: Basic, 1963–1983); Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked: Introduction to a Science of Mythology (New York: Harper and Row, 1969); Claude Lévi-Strauss, From Honey to Ashes: Introduction to a Science of Mythology (New York: Harper and Row, 1973); Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Origin of Table Manners: Introduction to a Science of Mythology (London: Cape, 1978); Claude Lévi-Strauss, Myth and Meaning (New York: Schocken, 1979); Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Naked Man: Introduction to a Science of Mythology (New York: Harper and Row, 1981); Jonathan Culler, ed., Structuralism (London: Routledge, 2006). Relevant examples of historical anthropology can be seen in Peter Burke, The Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy: Essays on Perception and Communication (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987); John Sturrock, Structuralism (London: Fontana, 2003); Baert, Lehmann, Jenke Akkerveken, and Schalley, New Perspectives in Iconology. 8 Chris Knight, “Lévi-Strauss and the Dragon: Mythologiques Reconsidered in the Light of an Australian Aboriginal Myth,” Man: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 18.1 (March 1983), pp. 21–50.

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Umberto Eco’s claim in his book A Theory of Semiotics, that “the whole of culture should be studied as a communicative phenomenon based on signification systems,”9 supports such a process of interpretation, which includes the careful examination and didactic identification of the codification process, while taking into account the presence of the scholar as a receptor who does not exist in a vacuum. Eco’s cultural semiotic theory sees the sign’s meaning as including both naturally formed and artificially constructed meanings within a given cultural context. In addition, he notes that the sign and its meaning exist within a code system that is related to any number of social and cultural phenomena. This book relies substantially on epistemological feminist theory,10 which shifts the focus and perspective of past and present studies from male to female protagonists. For example, by shifting the focus from Perseus to Andromeda in their shared myth, a significant aspect of the narrative, which concerns the meaning of the dragon to Andromeda, can be revealed.

State of the Arts and Theoretical Background The current study embraces an understanding of myth as containing culturally shaped structures that reflect various social and cultural concerns and struggles. Accordingly, I explore diverse cultural elements to interpret the signs in question, following the lead taken by earlier studies. One scholarly discipline central to the discussion unfolding throughout this entire work is that of dragon studies, which has lately become an independent field of study. This book examines the development of dragon symbolism in Western cultures, and surveys images of dragons and women from antiquity to medieval and early modern Europe, studying the symbolic functions and meanings of dragons from comparative cultural and folkloric perspectives. Foremost among these is Daniel Ogden’s Drakōn: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds, which surveys myths along with folkloric sources and material culture to analyze the meanings attached to representations of dragons, 9 Umberto Eco, La struttura assente (Milan: Bompiani, 1968); Umberto Eco, Trattato di semiotica generale (Milan: Bompiani, 1975); Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976), quotation p. 22; Umberto Eco, The Limits of Interpretation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994); Umberto Eco, Kant e l’ornitorinco (Milan: Bompiani, 1997); Susan Petrilli and Augusto Ponzio, Semiotics Unbounded: Interpretive Routes through the Open Network of Signs (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), pp. 299–340. On the connection between iconography and semiotics, see Arlette David, Renewing Royal Imagery: Akhenaten and Family in the Amarna Tombs (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2021). 10 Marjorie L. DeVault, “Talking and Listening from Women’s Standpoint: Feminist Strategies for Interviewing and Analysis,” Social Problems, 37.1 (1990), pp. 96–116.

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particularly those present in ancient texts.11 This study is complimented by Ogden’s Drakōn and Dragons, Serpents and Slayers in the Classical and Early Christian Worlds: A Sourcebook, which survey and explore the meaning and function of the dragon with an emphasis on the Greco-Roman cultural context.12 Ogden’s aim, alongside surveying and defining the epistemology of dragons in ancient Greco-Roman cultures, is to delineate the “fire against fire” concept – the idea that “it takes one to kill one,” and identify related cultural patterns in dragon myths. Although Ogden also attends in a thorough manner to visual manifestations, he is mainly concerned with literature, demonstrating how myths and folk traditions reflect approaches toward additional themes such as the Greco-Roman attitudes toward death and the dead. Also important in this context is Neil Forsyth’s The Old Enemy, which views dragons and other monsters as part of a royal lexicon that presents the king as a military commander, builder of cities, and judge, a figure who combats chaos and rebellion in all spheres of life. Forsyth uses a large literary corpus to examine the evolution of the male dragon-slayer motif throughout various civilizations and in different periods.13 Like Ogden, Forsyth examines the conceptual structure of the adversary in myths as a basis for his methodology. Ken Dowden’s Death and the Maiden applies similar methods of investigating Greek myths in order to explore attitudes toward women and marriage.14 A notable example of such a structural analysis of a myth is Joseph Fontenrose’s Python, which focuses on Apollo combating Python; Fontenrose performs a focused analysis of textual evidence pertaining to the myth in a literary and cultural context, and broadens the scope by performing a comparative analysis with many other dragon-slayer myths from different Mediterranean places and eras.15 Another example is Bernard F. Batto’s Slaying the Dragon: Mythmaking in the Biblical Tradition, which explores the dragon-slayer topos in a biblical context. 11 Daniel Ogden, Drakōn: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 12 Daniel Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers in the Classical and Early Christian Worlds: A Sourcebook (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 13 Forsyth, The Old Enemy; Ogden, Drakōn. 14 Ken Dowden, Death and the Maiden: Girls’ Initiation Rites in Greek Mythology (London: Routledge, 1989); Daniel Ogden, Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Daniel Ogden, Night’s Black Agents: Witches, Wizards and the Dead in the Ancient World (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2008); Daniel Ogden, “Medea as Mistress of Dragons,” in Contesti magici, eds. Marina Piranomonte and Francisco Marco Simón (Rome: De Luca Editori d’Arte, 2012), pp. 267–277; Ogden, Drakōn. For further examples, see Oliver Taplin, Comic Angels: And Other Approaches to Greek Drama through Vase-Paintings (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993); Robert A. Segal, Theorizing about Myth (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1999); Jennifer Larson, Understanding Greek Religion: A Cognitive Approach (London: Routledge, 2016). 15 Joseph Fontenrose, Python (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).

Introduc tion 

Like other scholars, Batto studies recurrent manifestations of dragon figures in the Bible, while comparing them to broader and local traditions. This comparative analysis assists Batto to contextualize these myths geographically and historically, offering a theoretical tool for deciphering the Bible.16 Calvert Watkins’s How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics studies the linguistic transformation of accounts concerned with dragon slayers that go back to ancient Sanskrit. By following this linguistic tradition, Watkins in fact follows cultural concepts that migrate among cultures, surviving over long periods of time. Additional important studies in this field are Ariane Delacampagne and Christian Delacampagne’s Here Be Dragons, which follows the transformation of dragon figures from antiquity to medieval and early modern Western Europe. This volume examines dragons alongside other monsters and mythical creatures, broadening the scope to include Eastern cultures.17 Also noteworthy are Jonathan D. Evans’s Dragons: Myth and Legend, and Martin Arnold’s The Dragon: Fear and Power, which examine the development of dragon symbolism over time, with a special emphasis on its literary and broader cultural aspects.18 Yet whereas the focal point of all these studies is the dragon-slayer topos, which involves the mythical creature’s interaction with a male protagonist, the motif of the woman and the dragon has been almost completely neglected. In the chapter “Masters and Mistresses of Drakontes” in his book Drakōn, as well as in his article “Medea as Mistress of Dragons,” Ogden points out that interaction between a dragon and a female is abnormal, but does not take this observation any further.19 The few studies that do address this motif are Waldemar Deonna’s art oriented study “L’arbre, le serpent et la jeune femme,” which attends to a miniature statue representing a female figure alongside a tree encircled by a serpent, and Jean-Marie Pailler’s “La vierge et le serpent de la trivalence à l’ambiguїté,” which explores the status of the Vestal Virgins and their symbolic connection to mythical and ritual traditions of virgins and serpents. These articles aim to explain particular visual and textual sources concerning women and dragons, yet relate to these instances as specific and local.20 16 Bernard F. Batto, Slaying the Dragon: Mythmaking in the Biblical Tradition (Louisville, KY: Westminster/ John Knox Press, 1992). 17 Ariane Delacampagne and Christian Delacampagne, Here Be Dragons (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003). 18 Calvert Watkins, How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Jonathan D. Evans, Dragons: Myth and Legend (London: Apple, 2008); Martin Arnold, The Dragon: Fear and Power (London: Reaktion Books, 2018). 19 Ogden, “Medea as Mistress of Dragons”; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 192–214. 20 Waldemar Deonna, “L’arbre, le serpent et la jeune femme,” in Mélanges Henri Grégoire, ed. Henri Gregoire (Brussels: Secrétariat des Éditions de l’Institut, 1949), pp. 197–205; Jean-Marie Pailler, “La vierge et le serpent de la trivalence à l’ambiguїté,” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome antiquité, 109 (1997), pp. 513–575.

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The current study, by contrast, offers a comprehensive exploration of this motif, while exploring previously researched documents in a new light. Another unique aspect of this book, in contrast with other studies of dragons, is its focus on art and on visual and material culture. At times, this focus also serves to reveal the dissonance between textual and visual evidence, as demonstrated in Saint Margaret’s case. It is my hope that the choice to focus on visual evidence will make a substantial contribution to this field of study.

Key concepts A book that investigates the sign woman, and relates gender stereotypes and biases, as part of the motif of the woman and the dragon, must inevitably incorporate aspects of gender studies, and more specifically, historical women’s studies. Important works in this context include Miriam R. Dexter’s “The Ferocious and the Erotic: ‘Beautiful’ Medusa and the Neolithic Bird and Snake,” which examines the earlier evidence of Medusa’s image and outlines her ancient matriarchal aspects;21 Madeleine M. Henry’s Prisoner of History: Aspasia of Miletus and Her Biographical Tradition, which investigates the bias that grew against a woman who challenged the social borders of fifth-century BCE Athens, and sheds light on the condition of women in that particular patriarchal context;22 and Joan B. Connelly’s Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece, which investigates the many ritual functions of women within the Greco-Hellenistic religious structure.23 In turning to the Christian context, particularly helpful is Robyn Cadwallader’s Three Methods for Reading the Thirteenth-Century Seinte Marherete: Archetypal, Semiotic, and Deconstructionist, which critically examines three different methods for analyzing this saint’s hagiography.24 Especially influential for the current study are Jacqueline M. Musacchio’s The Art and Ritual of Childbirth in Renaissance Italy and Art, Marriage, and Family in the Florentine Renaissance Palace, which bring together art, ritual, and religion, particularly in the domestic realm and as they relate to women.25 21 Miriam R. Dexter, “The Ferocious and the Erotic: ‘Beautiful’ Medusa and the Neolithic Bird and Snake,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 26.1 (Spring 2010), pp. 25–41. 22 Madeleine M. Henry, Prisoner of History: Aspasia of Miletus and Her Biographical Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). 23 Joan B. Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007). 24 Cadwallader, Three Methods for Reading the Thirteenth-Century Seinte Marherete. 25 Jacqueline M. Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth in Renaissance Italy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999); Marija Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess (London: Thames and Hudson, 1989); Jacqueline M. Musacchio, Art, Marriage, and Family in the Florentine Renaissance Palace (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008). For other researchers of women historic perspectives, see Elizabeth

Introduc tion 

As this study suggests, many of the motivations, signs and symbols that were attached or detached from this motif over time reflect central paradigmatic shifts, alongside the endurance of its meaning and function throughout the medieval and early modern periods by means of folk traditions, rituals, and various concepts regarding women. The evolution of myths and their meanings, as their narratives and iconographies consistently change and develop, offer valuable information used to pinpoint changing cultural attitudes. For example, the humanizing and beautifying of Medusa in the fifth century BCE points to the didactic use of her image during that period.26 Another example is Medea’s popularity in the context of funerary practices in the Roman Imperial period, attesting to the attention paid during this era to the concept of salvation and its relation to images of Medea and the dragon-driven chariot. At the same time, a study that follows the development of a single motif in various geographic and cultural contexts requires a measure of generalization. The use of the term “patriarchy” in this study also deserves some attention. Throughout the book, patriarchy refers to the propensity to “retain gender as a central organizing feature, maintaining a hierarchical emphasis and focusing on social systems and social arrangements that reinforce domination.”27 Although various patriarchies with different features have existed historically in different cultural contexts, the male-dominated social structure, or androcentric hierarchical structure, is a central feature of all the societies in question. Although the use of this term has received considerable criticism, recent theories of patriarchy suggest that such universality and simplification can sometimes be useful and effective in intercultural studies.28 While every culture has a unique and diverse social A. Petroff, Consolation of the Blessed: Women Saints in Medieval Tuscany (New York: Alta Gaia Society, 1979); Elizabeth A. Petroff, Body and Soul: Essays on Medieval Women and Mysticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); Jane T. Schulenburg, Forgetful of Their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society, ca. 500–1100 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998); Cynthia Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart: Narrative Effect in Pictorial Lives of Saints from the Tenth through the Thirteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, “Saints’ Lives and the Female Reader,” Forum for Modern Language Studies, 27.4 (1991), pp. 314–332; Rosemary R. Ruether, Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); Elizabeth L’Estrange and Alison More, eds., Representing Medieval Genders and Sexualities in Europe: Construction, Transformation, and Subversion, 600–1530 (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2011); Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?: Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013). 26 Kathryn Topper, “Perseus, the Maiden Medusa and the Imagery of Abduction,” Hesperia: Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 76.1 (January–March 2007), pp. 73–105. 27 Gwen Hunnicutt, “Varieties of Patriarchy and Violence Against Women: Resurrecting ‘Patriarchy’ as a Theoretical Tool,” Violence Against Women, 15.5 (2009), pp. 553–573, particularly p. 554. 28 Veronica Beechey, “On Patriarchy,” Feminist Review, 3.1 (1979), pp. 66–82; Sylvia Walby, Theorising Patriarchy (Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1990); Ibid., pp. 553–573; Pavla Miller, Patriarchy (London: Taylor and Francis, 2017).

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structure, this study centers on sociocultural contexts in which the main feature of the family hierarchy is its governance by men, a leadership role that is reflected in the overall social structure. The current analysis acknowledges that the myths and images of the GrecoRoman era were mostly (if not entirely) created, written, and illustrated by men. They are therefore prone to present a male perspective concerning femininity, and the related fear of a matriarchal threat. The examination of the three types encompassed within the motif of the woman and the dragon, and of their place within patriarchal orders, as well as the epistemological approach applied to the study of women’s interactions with dragons, are thus also inevitably related to the author’s perspective as a woman. It is my belief that a feminist perspective was essential to noticing the lacunas and inconsistencies and raising the questions that this book intends to resolve. The themes and images were carefully selected from a comprehensive analysis of hundreds of images and narratives portraying women with dragons, in order to best demonstrate the three types elaborated on throughout. My hope is that the current study will foster further reflection on additional motifs and images centered on female figures, which continue to be largely investigated from a male perspective, giving rise to various misconceptions. Such a perspective is critical to an understanding of images uniting women with dragons, whose resonances continue to populate contemporary culture.

1.

The Dragon Abstract: Attending to the motif of the woman and the dragon requires an initial understanding of how dragons were conceptualized in the human imagination, as well as of the male dragon-slayer topos. This chapter explores the biological and psychological reasons underlying the creation of dragon imagery, and its origin in the human experience of snakes. Although I focus on Mediterranean images of dragons as they evolved over time, the theories I examine have global pertinence. This chapter provides a summary of the scholarship on dragons and dragon-slayers, which serves as the foundation for the subsequent examination of the split between the representation of men and women in relationship to dragons. Key Words: Dragon, snake, life metaphor, Mediterranean, art, dragon-slayer.

This book’s exploration of the relationship between women and dragons centers on visual representations created throughout Western Europe and the Mediterranean and on their transformation over the course of close to two millennia, from GrecoRoman antiquity to the medieval and early modern period. The current chapter opens with a preliminary examination of dragon imagery – its origins, evolution, attached symbolic meanings and functions – while offering a summary of existing studies on this subject. I then go on to examine visual depictions of dragons as related to myths, legends, hagiographies and stories presenting an interaction between a male protagonist and a dragon, with special attention given to the topos of the male dragon-slayer. This chapter provides a number of unique insights that mostly rely on artistic evidence, while focusing on a summary of numerous scholarly sources in order to offer a “distant reading”1 of Mediterranean dragon studies: it does not offer an in-depth analysis of texts or images, but rather provides an overview of the existing literature on dragons, while identifying key themes pertaining to the current book, which surface through a combined study of textual and visual sources. The 1 Franco Moretti, “Conjectures on World Literature,” New Left Review (2000), pp. 54–68; Franco Moretti, Distant Reading (London: Verso, 2013).

Khalifa-Gueta, S., The Woman and the Dragon in Premodern Art. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023. doi 10.5117/9789463723572_ch01

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detailed analysis of the dragon-slayer topos will serve as a comparative basis for my examination, in the following chapters, of the motif of the woman and the dragon, as encompassing a distinct genealogy of visual images and signs, which give rise to rich and wide-ranging constellations of meaning. Throughout the book, the term “topos” is employed as a conceptual archetype underlying a range of stories and artworks. In contrast, the motif of the woman and the dragon was not explicitly identif ied by the artists who portrayed it. Rather, its current identif ication relies on following a visual formula in order to point to para-concepts underlying the dragon’s manifestation in different culture contexts. The dragon is one of the most intriguing products of the human imagination. Images of this mythological creature date back to the prehistoric era, as made evident by the archaeological findings at the Göbekli Tepe excavation site in Turkey. The dragon was prevalent in all of the world’s major ancient cultures, including Mesopotamian, Indo-European, Chinese, Egyptian, pre-Columbian, and Australian aboriginal cultures.2 Several possible reasons for its appearance in so many different and distinct cultures throughout the world are thoroughly summed up by Robert Blust in his article “The Origin of Dragons.” Blust successfully proves that the similarities between dragon myths worldwide are greater than their differences, leading to the conclusion that they share a common conceptual basis, which includes elements such as breathing fire and androgyny. This common basis was perhaps rooted in the subconscious memory of an enormous reptilian danger – what David E. Jones identifies as homo sapiens’ basic brain reaction to reptiles and related symbols of fire-breath and androgyny, which he terms “brain-dragon.”3 However, Blust’s research focused mainly on pre-Columbian myths, paying almost no attention 2 Aby Warburg and W. F. Mainland, “A Lecture on Serpent Ritual,” Journal of the Warburg Institute, 2.4 (April 1939), pp. 277–292; Chris Knight, “Lévi-Strauss and the Dragon: Mythologiques Reconsidered in the Light of an Australian Aboriginal Myth,” Man: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 18.1 (March 1983), pp. 21–50; Cecelia Klein, Rethinking Cihuacóatl: Aztec Political Imagery of the Conquered Woman (Oxford: BAR, 1988); Carlo Bonfiglioli, Arturo Gutiérrez, and María Eugenia Olavarría, “De la violencia mítica al ‘mundo flor’: Transformaciones de la Semana Santa en el norte de México,” Journal de la société des américanistes, 90.1 (2004), pp. 57–91; Carlo Bonfiglioli, “The Snake Symbolism in Rarámuri Dances: An Analytical Bridge between the Northwest Mexico and the Southwest of the United States,” in Continuing Dance Culture Dialogues: Southwest Borders and Beyond, ed. Ninotchka Bennahum (New York: Congress on Research in Dance, 2008), pp. 34–41; Karl Taube, “Where Earth and Sky Meet: The Sea in Ancient and Contemporary Maya Cosmology,” in Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea, eds. Daniel Finamore and Stephen Housto (Salem, MA: Peabody Essex Museum, 2010), pp. 202–221; Klaus Schmidt, “Göbekli Tepe: The Stone Age Sanctuaries; New Results of Ongoing Excavations with a Special Focus,” Documenta praehistorica, 37 (2010), pp. 239–256, particularly pp. 247, 252. 3 The term “brain-dragon” is employed in the context of socio-evolutionary investigations; see David E. Jones, An Instinct for Dragons (London: Routledge, 2002); Lynne A. Isbell, The Fruit, the Tree, and the Serpent: Why We See So Well (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009).

The Dr agon 

to Western, Greco-Roman myths. 4 I suggest that dragon imagery and its specific features may have arisen separately yet simultaneously in major ancient cultures in relation to the metaphor of human life5 – or, alternately, that this myth may be older than early migrations. However, there exists no definitive answer to this question. Although the image of the dragon was modified over time and in different contexts to cater to specific cultural requirements, its enduring popularity throughout the Mediterranean indicates that it served a significant psychological need. In ancient Mediterranean cultures, the dragon was conceived of as a super-reptile whose appearance was based on the physiognomy of the snake,6 while including traits that may have been inspired by other animals such as whales, crocodiles, lizards, or basilisks. Indeed, from the ancient to the early modern period, there existed no difference between the cultural imagery of snakes and dragons, and their separation into two distinct motifs is a relatively modern concept.7 As the current discussion will demonstrate, in some cases literary texts that identify a figure as a dragon were illustrated with images of a serpent. For example, medieval illustrations of the biblical Fall of Man alternately depict what we would describe at present as a serpent or a dragon, as discussed at length in Chapter Five.8 Several biological characteristics of snakes are related to the dragon’s symbolic image and functions.9 The first of these characteristics, crawling, has a number of different resonances: (a) Metaphors of human life are often rooted in our physiognomy, and build on our upright bodily posture and on the fact that our sensory organs, orifices, and communicative functions are mostly located in the head. A basic metaphor relates “up” to happiness, health and life, while “down” is related to sadness, illness and death.10 The snake, which has no limbs and moves horizontally, is thus construed as representing the absolute opposite of humans, and is identified with the negative realm associated with the direction “down.” Moreover, the location of the snake “down” below, close to the vulnerable feet of humans, naturally positions it at the Achilles’ heel, both concretely and metaphorically. The snake’s undulating crawl, which resembles a wave moving forward, is at the 4 Robert Blust, “The Origin of Dragons,” Anthropos, 95.2 (2000), pp. 519–536. 5 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University Press of Chicago, 1980). 6 Richard B. Stothers, “Ancient scientific basis of the “Great Serpent” from historical evidence,” Isis, 95.2 (2004), pp. 220–238. 7 Charles Daremberg and Edmond Saglio, eds., “Draco,” in Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines (Paris: Hachette, 1877–1904), II/1.4, pp. 403–414; Joseph Fontenrose, Python (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); Daniel Ogden, Drakōn: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 8 Genesis 3. 9 Diana Rodríguez Pérez, “The Meaning of the Snake in the Ancient Greek World,” Arts, 10.2 (2020), pp. 1–26. 10 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, pp. 14–21.

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root of its worldwide association with water. The symbolic representation of the wave as a zigzag line is known from ancient Egypt, since the hieroglyph for the word ‘water’ is (the phonetic sound for N).11 The same culture presented the dragon Apophis as a zigzag line that looks exactly like the hieroglyph,12 thus connecting the dragon with the water element – as in the case of Seth Fighting Apophis on the Sun Ship of Re, which is represented in the Her-Uben B Papyrus dated to the twenty-first dynasty. Additionally, swimming comes very naturally to snakes, which can advance rapidly, coordinating their movement with that of the water – another quality that underscores the connection between the dragon and the water element. A second characteristic associated with snakes is venom. Some snakes are venomous, and several have venom so strong that they can kill a fully grown person nearly instantaneously. The snake’s lethal nature has fascinated human beings from the dawn of time. In ancient Greece, snakes were believed to have a profound knowledge of herbs, and to therefore have the ability to concoct fatal poisons. Homer, for instance, writes in The Iliad: “And as a serpent of the mountain awaiteth a man at his lair, having fed upon evil herbs,” while Aelian argues in On the Nature of Animals: “And when they [snakes] intend to lie in wait for a human being or an animal, they eat poisonous roots and herbs too of the same description.”13 This is one of the reasons that snakes were believed to be more intelligent than humans, and to have access to knowledge of nature that eluded the latter. A third characteristic associated with snakes that captured the human imagination was molting, a snake’s biological capacity to shed its old skin and emerge from it anew. This ability was associated with self-rejuvenation and triumph over death. The intriguing belief that snakes could overcome death led humans to try and imitate their behavior. Once again, ancient Egypt offers the best example, as represented by its burial customs: a dead body was wrapped in shrouds so that the deceased might emerge revived and rejuvenated in the afterlife (this ceremony was also associated with a caterpillar’s cocoon). It is no wonder, then, that Hathor – the goddess who functioned as the metaphoric womb in which the deceased dwelled 11 Marija Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess (London: Thames and Hudson, 1989), p. 19; Ariel Golan, Myth and Symbol: Symbolism in Prehistoric Religions, trans. Rita Schneider-Teteruk (Jerusalem: Golan, 1991), pp. 101–114. 12 Ludwig D. Morenz, “Apophis: On the Origin, Name, and Nature of an Ancient Egyptian Anti-God,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 63.3 (2004), pp. 201–205. 13 Homer, The Iliad, trans. A.T. Murray, doctoral dissertation (Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924): 22.93–94; Nicander, “Theriaca,” in The Poems and Poetical Fragments, ed. trans. and notes. Andrew S. F. Gow and A.F. Scholfield (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953): 209–280; Aelian, On the Characteristics of Animals, trans. Alwyn F. Scholfield (London: W. Heinemann, 1958–1959): 6.4; Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica, trans. John H. Mozley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 8.97. Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 201–202, 220–221, 233.

The Dr agon 

until being reborn – transformed herself into the Uraeus cobra.14 Furthermore, the combination of molting and the production of venom caused humans to view the snake as an alchemist whose potions could kill, but could also heal. Moreover, since agricultural gods were related to death and rebirth, the association of snakes to the cycle of life connected them to agriculture, and they were worshipped to ensure a good crop yield. Examples include Triptolemos, who rides a dragon-driven chariot to distribute the knowledge of agriculture on behalf of Demeter, or the Thesmophoria or the Lanuvium ceremonies, which were meant to ensure a good agricultural year, as discussed below.15 The view of the dragon as a guardian of agriculture gave rise to many myths in which it protected a tree or a water source. A fourth characteristic of snakes – inhabiting lairs – also played a role in their perception. A snake inhabits an underground lair where it hibernates in the winter and only emerges in the spring, simulating plant behavior. Yulia Ustinova alludes to anguiped deities, which had lower halves in the form of snake tails or plants, thus equating snakes and vegetation.16 Interestingly, in this context, Mary Douglas’s renowned study of pure and defiled food in prescientific cultures links taboos on food with animal habitations: Animals that live underground are considered messengers of the underworld and are thus viewed as defiled, and their consumption is prohibited.17 A similar association is discussed by Mircea Eliade, who considers the role of snakes in shamanic cosmology, where they are associated with the underground realm and the world of the dead.18 Additional anthropological evidence also indicates that snakes were considered messengers of death due to their ability to move between the realms, and to the lightning speed with which they can inflict death. In accordance with Claude Lévi-Strauss’s definition of a “trickster” as a being that has the ability to move and mediate between worlds, the dragon can be described as a trickster moving between the dimensions of time, space, and matter.19 14 Lana Troy, Patterns of Queenship in Ancient Egyptian Myth and History (Uppsala: Universitet; Stockholm: Almquist and Wiksell International, 1986), pp. 23–25; Alison Roberts, Hathor Rising: The Power of the Goddess in Ancient Egypt (Devon: Northgate, 1995). 15 Arthur B. Cook, Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1914–1940), I, pp. 211–229; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 204–205. 16 Yulia Ustinova, “Snake-Limbed and Tendril-Limbed Goddesses in the Art and Mythology of the Mediterranean and Black Sea,” in Scythians and Greeks: Cultural Interactions in Scythia, Athens and the Early Roman Empire (Sixth Century BC–First Century AD), ed. David Braund (Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 2005), pp. 64–79. 17 Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge; Kegan Paul, 1966), pp. 56–57. 18 Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, trans. Willard R. Trask (London: Routledge; Kegan Paul, 1964), pp. 259–266. 19 Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, trans. Claire Jacobson and Broole Grundfest Schoepf (New York: Basic, 1963–1983); Claude Lévi-Strauss, Myth and Meaning (New York: Schocken, 1979), pp. 25–33.

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A fifth characteristic of snakes is the fact that they have no eyelids, and so were thought to have no need of sleep. One can hardly think of a better guardian to protect something precious than an animal whose eyes are eternally open, and who is always awake. It comes as no surprise, then, that the Uraeus cobra was the deity chosen to guard the Pharaohs, as elaborated below, or that Argus – the thousand-eyed monster – was the guardian chosen for Io.20 Finally, the fact that a snake is shaped like a uniform line, with no limbs or other protruding features, also triggered the human imagination. It was likened to a stick without branches – a rod – and eventually also a tree. A famous example from the Bible is the competition between Moses and Aaron and the Pharaoh’s priests, in which Aaron’s rod turned into a snake and then back into a rod.21 The snake’s corporal flexibility also led humans to imagine it as holding its tail in its mouth to form a perfect geometrical circle. The cosmologies of several cultures depict the world as being surrounded by a huge dragon such as the Ouroboros dragon, as made evident by Robert Grave’s comparison between the Mesopotamian Tethys and the Homeric Ophion as both girdling the world.22 Forsyth addresses the Greek notion of Okeanos (Ogenos) as a serpent biting its tail in its mouth and surrounding the world,23 a notion that was also familiar in Egypt.24 This shape was also linked to the element of time, especially in light of the rim surrounding Aion. Another connection to time was the caduceus/kerykeion (from the Greek κηρύκειον kērukeion), the scepter of Hermes Psychopompos, which was embellished with one or two dragons forming a figure eight, and symbolizing eternity and reincarnation (fig. 1).25 The caduceus/ kerykeion is mentioned in the Homeric Hymns as the dead Python, which Apollo

20 Jacqueline Chittenden, “Diaktoros argeiphontes,” American Journal of Archaeology, 52.1 (January– March 1948), pp. 24–33; S. Davis, “Argeiphontes in Homer: The Dragon-Slayer,” Greece and Rome, 22.64 (February 1953), pp. 33–38, p. 36; Manfred Lurker, The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Egypt: An Illustrated Dictionary with 114 Illustrations (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980), p. 125; Roberts, Hathor Rising, pp. 8, 34; “Hermes,” in Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae (LIMC) (Zurich: Artemis, 1981–1999), V/1, pp. 356–358, V/2, pp. 837–854. 21 Exodus 7:11–13. 22 Robert Graves, The Greek Myths (London: Cassell, 1955), pp. 27–28. 23 Neil Forsyth, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 63, 70. 24 Erik Hornung, Conceptions of God in Egypt: The One and the Many, trans. John Baines (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), pp. 163–164; Dana M. Reemes, The Egyptian Ouroboros: An Iconological and Theological Study (Los Angeles: University of California, 2015). 25 Doro Levi, “Aion,” Hesperia: Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 13.4 (October– December 1944), pp. 269–314; Howard M. Jackson, “The Meaning and Function of the Leontocephaline in Roman Mithraism,” Numen, 32.1 (July 1985), pp. 17–45; Roger Beck, Planetary Gods and Planetary Orders in the Mysteries of Mithras (Leiden: Brill, 1988), pp. 54–57.

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gave Hermes as a gift.26 The snake’s unique shape also gave rise to the image of a snake wrapped around a tree. The image of a dragon coiled around a vertical tree might have initially been related to the Greek artistic aspiration to create images compatible with the upright alignment of the vertical human modus. In Planetary Gods and Planetary Orders in the Mysteries of Mithras, Roger Beck ties the spiral movement of the snake around an object to the symbolic movement of time. His analysis of the Mithraic high and distant Leontocephaline god, which is related to Aion/Kronos, showed that the movement of the snake around the body of the god was a geometrical display of two time systems – the linear and the circular. In this sense, it constituted a philosophical representation of the snake as embodying the journey of the soul from life to death and back to life (reincarnation), the progress toward salvation, and the annual agricultural cycle.27 From the first to second century BCE, the image of a dragon forming a circle was a visual symbol of the shrines of Osiris – the Egyptian god who ruled the realm of the dead and was also responsible for salvation and the afterlife in the Isiac mystery, who was syncretically united with the Greek god of death Hades as the god Sarapis.28 The biological qualities of the snake and their ancient interpretations contributed to the image of the dragon as existing in opposition to humans, as being more intelligent than them, and as having access to profound knowledge that humans crave. This symbolism granted dragons the extraordinary ability to master the elements of water and f ire, to move between the spheres as tricksters, and to orchestrate the movement of time. In classical cultures, primarily Greco-Roman ones, a dragon was referred to using the Greek words drakōn (female, drakaina; plural, drakontes) and the Latin draco (plural, dracones). In Here Be Dragons, Ariane Delacampagne and Christian Delacampagne note that the word drakôn comes from the verb “to stare” (δέρκεσθαι), which refers to the snake’s lack of eyelids, as well as to the perception of the dragon as preceding the existence of the world and as having thus witnessed its creation.29 26 “To Hermes,” in The Homeric Hymns, trans. Jules Cashford, intro. and notes. Nicholas Richardson (London and New York: Penguin Books, 2003): 81; Davis, “Argeiphontes in Homer,” p. 37; “Kerykeion,” in LIMC, I/1, pp. 728–730, I/2, p. 495. 27 R. Beck, Planetary Gods and Planetary Orders, p. 57; Jaime Alvar, Romanising Oriental Gods: Myth, Salvation and Ethics in the Cults of Cybele, Isis and Mithras (Leiden: Brill, 2008); Sharon Khalifa-Gueta, “The Leontocephaline from the Villa Albani: Material Documentation for Religious Entanglement,” Humans, 2 (2022), pp. 31–49. 28 G. J. F. Kater-Sibbes, Preliminary Catalogue of Sarapis Monuments (Leiden: Brill, 1973), p. 151, no. 802. 29 As evident in the Greek Pelasgian creation myth, as presented in Graves, The Greek Myths, I, pp. 27–31, and in the Bible, Genesis 3:21, for further discussion on the subject, see Shlomit Lederman, “‘The Great Crocodiles’ and Dragons in Illustrated Hebrew Medieval Manuscripts,” in Zekhor davar le-ʻavdekha asufat maʾamarim le-zekher Dov Rapel, eds. Shemuʾel Gliḳ and Dov Rappel (Ramat-Gan: Universiṭat Bar-Ilan Press, 2007), pp. 319–335.

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Figure 1 – Hermes, marble statue, Roman copy of a Greek sculpture from the fifth century BCE, Vatican Museum, The Vatican © Jastrow, public domain, Wikimedia.

The Woman and the Dr agon in Premodern Art

The Dr agon 

Charles Daremberg and Edmond Saglio suggest that in the Greco-Roman era, the term draco referred to snakes in a general sense, rather than to a specific species.30 Over the centuries, the snake-like dragon was endowed with additional body parts, such as wings and fins. These changes require further inspection in order to determine whether they transformed the meaning and symbolic implications of the image, or whether they were solely aesthetic. In Allegory and the Migration of Symbols, Rudolf Wittkower follows the evolution of the motif of the struggle between a snake/dragon and an eagle, which he views as a symbol of a battle between the heavenly realm inhabited by the gods above and the underworld inhabited by chthonic gods.31 Wings, the most widely recognized addition to the dragon’s body, join together the snake and the eagle, thus placing the dragon in the realm of the gods, a higher sphere than that inhabited by humans. As I would like to suggest here, this winged addition to the dragon’s body is possibly related to the rising importance of salvation and to the concept of the elevation of the soul in different cultures. The image of the winged serpent expressed the dichotomy between the physical body being buried underground, in the subterranean realm of the dead, and the belief in the ascension of the spirit. For example, the Egyptian Ba is represented by a bird that leaves the body upon death.32 Thus, as I aim to argue, the addition of wings to the image of the serpent, which is the symbol of the messenger of death representing the chthonic realm, offers a solution to this dichotomy, as best exemplified in the caduceus sign (fig. 1). The wings, however, are only one of many possible features that could be added to the dragon. A dragon is thus defined as a mythical reptilian creature, most often characterized by serpentine qualities. In some cases, the question of whether a given image should be defined as representing a dragon is challenging: Should a monster such as the Chimera, which has only minimal reptilian features, be considered a dragon? Daniel Ogden contends that the Chimera and similar beasts should be considered dragons.33 The current study, by contrast, maintains that this definition is relative and fluid. For example, Argos, the many-eyed monster sent by Hera to guard Io, is represented in art as a humanoid monster with eyes all over its body; in Homeric 30 Daremberg and Saglio, “Draco,” in Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, II/1.4, pp. 403–414; Ariane Delacampagne and Christian Delacampagne, Here Be Dragons (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), p. 129; Bruno Snell, The Discovery of the Mind (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2012), pp. 1–3; Ogden, Drakōn, p. 2. 31 Rudolf Wittkower, Allegory and the Migration of Symbols (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1987), pp. 16–44. 32 Franz Cumont and Valery Marie, After Life in Roman Paganism: Lectures Delivered at Yale University on the Silliman Foundation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1922); Raymond O. Faulkner, “The Man Who Was Tired of Life,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 42 (December 1956), pp. 21–40; Allen, The Debate between a Man and His Soul (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), pp. 162–202. 33 Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 5, 68–115.

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literature, however, Hermes is called Argeiphontes for killing the dragon Argos. S. Davis sees Homer’s Hermes as a replacement for the ancient god of a snake cult, explaining Argos’ snakelike identity as related to older traditions.34 While portrayals of dragons sometimes include only additional body parts from the animal kingdom, occasionally they represent a hybrid creature, half-human and half-dragon. Although Ogden does not distinguish between these different hybrids, in some instances they appear as two separate entities that were grotesquely conjoined. This aspect is elaborated in the discussion of Medusa in Chapter Three. In the context of the human life metaphor35 and the myriad myths concerning dragons, the dragon clearly appears as man’s primordial adversary.36 One of the principal themes in representations of dragons is the dragon-slayer topos, which concerns the adversarial relationship between a dragon and a king, hero or god. Northrop Frye argued that the dragon-slayer topos functions as an archetypal superstructure at the basis of related narratives worldwide, maintaining that the persistence and repetition of this structure proves its strength and resilience.37 Nonetheless, this notion must be regarded with caution, since there is little evidence of the existence of such a topos beyond Europe, parts of Asia, and Africa. Chinese culture, for instance, represents a fundamentally different approach toward the dragon than the one prevalent in the Mediterranean region and specifically in Greco-Roman cultures, which are the focus of the current study. Employing a comparative methodology, Joseph Fontenrose’s Python, Bernard F. Batto’s Slaying the Dragon, and Calvert Watkins’s How to Kill a Dragon present pre-Classical evidence from Mesopotamian, Near-Eastern, and Indo-European literature. Fontenrose and Watkins demonstrate how myths concerned with this topos were transferred from Mesopotamian and Indo-European cultures to Greece, where they received local cultural embellishments, while Batto looks for earlier sources relied on by the Bible’s different writers.38 The topos of the dragon-slayer in the ancient Mediterranean sphere has been discussed at length by several scholars in terms of its literary sources. Writing about the Greco-Roman dragon in his Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, Daremberg and Saglio portrays the dichotomy inherent to the dragon motif in 34 Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. A. D. Melville, intro. and notes. Edward J. Kenney (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998): 1.568–723. Davis, “Argeiphontes in Homer,” pp. 33–38; Ogden, Drakōn, p. 5. 35 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By. 36 Forsyth, The Old Enemy. 37 Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (New York: Harcourt, Brace; Jovanovich, 1982). 38 Fontenrose, Python, pp. 146–272; Bernard F. Batto, Slaying the Dragon: Mythmaking in the Biblical Tradition (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992); Calvert Watkins, How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 297–518.

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connection with the tropes of good and evil.39 Neil Forsyth’s The Old Enemy examines dragons and other monsters as part of a lexicon of royal propaganda that presents the king as a military commander, builder of cities, and judge who proclaims and enforces laws – a figure who combats chaos, destruction and rebellion in all spheres of life. 40 Ogden’s books Dragons, Serpents and Slayers and Drakōn, which are both crucial to an understanding of this motif, survey Greco-Roman myths together with folkloric evidence and visual sources, and analyze the symbolism attached to the dragon. 41 To date, however, there exists no body of research focusing primarily on visual representations of dragons. Daremberg and Saglio demonstrates that dragons in Greece and Rome were seen as both good and evil. For example, Agathos Daimon, the benevolent protective spirit, was visualized as a serpent, and the Oikouros Ophis was the apotropaic serpent of Athens. The popularity of dragon imagery seems to have peaked in the Roman Imperial period, during which they were highly appreciated and widely worshipped in temples, as in the case of Glycon’s cult, where a real serpent was perceived as divine and as possessing prophetic abilities,42 as well as in the private sphere, where they were presumed to embody the genius paterfamilias, the spirit of the head of the family. 43 Given the almost total absence of scenes representing the slaying of dragons during this period, it can be inferred that combat scenes concerning the confrontation of a dragon in battle gradually began to be perceived as blasphemous, and were left out of artistic representations, although such references were still included in literature. 44 Paradoxically, this sense of awe towards the dragon was probably the reason that Christianity came to view it as the ultimate enemy, presenting the Antichrist in the form of a dragon. 45 The myth of the combat on doomsday was rooted in the dragon-slayer topos found in myths such as those about Zeus combating Typhon and 39 Daremberg and Saglio, “Draco,” in Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, II/1.4, pp. 403–414. 40 Forsyth, The Old Enemy, pp. 38–42. 41 Daniel Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers in the Classical and Early Christian Worlds: A Sourcebook (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Ogden, Drakōn. 42 For information on the Glycon cult, see Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, Rome, the Centre of Power: Roman Art to AD 200, trans. Peter Green (London: Thames and Hudson, 1970), p. 311; Howard M. Jackson, The Lion Becomes Man: The Gnostic Leontomorphic Creator and the Platonic Tradition (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1985), pp. 79–80. 43 Jocelyn M. C. Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art (London: Thames and Hudson, 1973), pp. 224, 233. 44 Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Robin Waterfield, intro. and notes. Carolyn Dewald (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008): 8.41. “Agathodaimon,” in LIMC, I/1, pp. 277–282, I/2, pp. 203–207; Campbell Bonner, Studies in Magical Amulets: Chiefly Graeco-Egyptian (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1950), pp. 142, 162, 169; Alvar, Romanising Oriental Gods, pp. 58–59; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 203, 297–309. 45 Revelation 12:7–9. Forsyth, The Old Enemy, p. 95; A. Delacampagne and C. Delacampagne, Here Be Dragons, pp. 133–134; Ogden, Drakōn, p. 13. Boner’s book focuses on Gnostic magical amulets, presenting alternative Christian approaches toward dragons in Gnostic cults, see Bonner, Studies in Magical Amulets.

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the Zoroastrian Ahura Mazda combating Ahriman. 46 Christianity embraced this topos while simplifying the image of the dragon, negating the creature’s benevolent qualities and dismissing its relationship to snake cults and its many magical attributes. However, the legacy of the dragon-slayers topos persisted in folktales and popular lore. 47 Exceptions to this topos are stories such as that of Saint Simeon Stylites, in which a dragon sees the truth of God, refuting the belief that dragons were unable to see the light because they symbolized the ultimate darkness. 48 In ancient Greek and Egyptian culture, an ambivalent attitude toward dragons was common. The positive view of dragons in ancient Egyptian culture inspired the Gnostic belief that the snake in the Garden of Eden was a prefiguration of Christ. The Gnostics believed that Christ was crucified by the false god Yaldabaot (Jehovah), and that the snake of Eden was the first being that granted profound knowledge to man, thus prefiguring Jesus, who provided humanity with additional spiritual knowledge. That being said, Yaldabaot has several dragons among his seven principal assistants. While Gnosticism was eventually suppressed as a heretic cult, several Gnostic beliefs reemerged in Europe in the context of the Cathar heresy in the late Middle Ages. 49 The dragon-slayer theme was assimilated into Christianity early on. The description of the Archangel Michael battling the Antichrist portrays it as a dragon and a serpent: “And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan.”50 This passage is considered to have been prefigured 46 Noga Ayali-Darshan, “The Diffusion of the Story of Combat between the Storm-God and the Sea in the Ancient Near East: Sources, Traditions and History,” doctoral dissertation (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2011). 47 For dragon-slayers during the Middle Ages, see Bezalel Narkiss, “The Sign of Jonah,” Gesta, 18.1 (1978), pp. 63–76; John Boardman, “‘Very Like a Whale’: Classical Sea Monsters,” in Monsters and Demons in the Ancient and Medieval World, eds. Ann E. Farkas, Prudence O. Harper, and Evelyn B. Harrison (Mainz am Rhine: Von Zabern, 1987), pp. 73–84; Ernest Ingersoll, Dragons and Dragon-Lore (New York: Payson and Clarke, 1928); Fontenrose, Python, pp. 521–544; Jonathan D. Evans, “Semiotics and Traditional Lore: The Medieval Dragon Tradition,” in “Folklore and Semiotics,” special issue, Journal of Folklore Research, 22.2–3 (May–December 1985), pp. 85–112; Philip Butterworth, “Late Medieval Performing Dragons,” in “Early English Drama,” special issue, Yearbook of English Studies, 43 (2013), pp. 318–342. 48 Roger Pearse, “Patrologia Latina (PL) PDF’s,” Roger Pearse: Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, Information Access, and More (blog), www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/patrologia-latina-pl-volumes-available-online: 73.330AB. Gustave Flaubert, The Temptation of Saint Antony (London: Greening, 1910); Beryl Rowland, Animals with Human Faces: A Guide to Animal Symbolism (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1975), p. 69; Alison G. Elliott, Roads to Paradise: Reading the Lives of the Early Saints (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1987), p. 157. 49 Jackson, The Lion Becomes Man, pp. 31–33; Jeffrey J. Kripal, The Serpent’s Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). 50 Revelation 20:1–2.

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in the Book of Job: “By his power he churned up the sea; by his wisdom he cut Rahab to pieces. By his breath the skies became fair; his hand pierced the gliding serpent,” as well as by the Little Apocalypse described in the Book of Isaiah: “the Lord will punish with his sword, his fierce, great and powerful sword, Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will slay the monster of the sea.”51 These biblical texts reflect the topos of the Egyptian and Zoroastrian concept of the ultimate cosmic combat between the beneficent solar god and the chaotic and evil primeval dragon, which would lead to global balance. At the same time, early Christian imagery includes depictions of a mortal fighting a dragon, which reflect the propaganda concerning the good king as described above. For example, Eusebius’ description of Constantine in a monumental painting on the facade of his palace in the fourth century CE: “This he displayed on a very high panel set before the entrance to the palace for the eyes of all to see, showing in the picture the Savior’s sign placed above his own head, and the hostile and inimical beast, which had laid siege to the Church of God through the tyranny of the godless, he made in the form of a dragon borne down to the deep. For the oracles proclaimed him a ‘dragon’ and a ‘crooked serpent’ in the books of the prophets of God (cf. Isaiah 27: 1),”52 as well as the late antique descriptions of King Solomon discussed in Chapter Five, both include men portrayed as dragon slayers, representing the continuation of the dragon-slayer topos as a form of propaganda for the good ruler, and its adaptation into Christianity. Christopher Walter’s “The Thracian Horseman: Ancestor of the Warrior Saint?” traces the evolution of the dragon-slayer topos in Eastern Christian and Muslim traditions from the Byzantine to the Ottoman period, noting that Christ himself was considered a dragon slayer. Additionally, various dragon-slayer saints, including Saint Sisinnius and Saint Theodore, figured in Byzantine culture, and the topos of the dragon-slayer emerged again in Western Europe as part of Saint George’s hagiography.53 As depicted by Antonius of Alexandria (296/8–373 CE) in The Life and Affairs of Our Holy Father Antony, Saint Antony’s life includes descriptions of several dragons and other monsters as being among the wild animals defeated by the saint’s faith 51 Job 26:12–13; Isaiah 27:1. 52 Eusebius of Caesarea, Life of Constantine, trans. intro. and comm. Averil Cameron and Stuart G. Hal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999): 3.3.1–3. 53 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. William Granger Ryan, intro. Eamon Duffy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012): 58.238–242. Christopher Walter, “The Thracian Horseman: Ancestor of the Warrior Saint?,” Byzantinische Forschungen, 14 (1989), pp. 659–673; Christopher Walter, The Warrior Saints in Byzantine Art and Tradition (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003); Georges Didi-Huberman, Riccardo Garbetta and Manuela Morgaine, Saint Georges et le dragon: Versions d’une legend (Paris: Adam Biro, 1994); Samantha J. E. Riches, St George: Hero, Martyr and Myth (Gloucester: Sutton, 2000); Muriel C. Morabito and Pasquale Morabito, “Saint George and the Dragon: Cult, Culture and Foundation of the City,” Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, 18 (2011), pp. 135–153.

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Figure 2 – Jonah Sarcophagus, third quarter of the third century CE, marble, Pio Cristiano Museum: Vatican Museums, The Vatican (inv. 31448) © Egisto Sani

Figure 3 – Douris Cup: Jason Being Swallowed by the Dragon and Athena, 480–470 BCE, red-figure cup from Cerveteri (Etruria), Gregoriano Etrusco Museum; Vatican Museum, The Vatican © Shii, public domain, Wikimedia

when he lived in the wilderness. The wilderness and the wild beasts depicted in Antony’s hagiography serve as evidence concerning the fear of what might be lurking outside the city, while constituting an allegory for the triumph of the human soul over the suffering of the flesh.54 54 Flaubert, The Temptation of Saint Antony; Athanasius, The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus, trans. and intro. R. C. Gregg (New York: Paulist Press, 1980): 6.34–35, 28.52–53. Moshe Barasch, “The Hermit

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In addition, early Christian sarcophagi repeatedly represented the iconographical schema of Jonah being swallowed by a big fish (sometimes referred to as Leviathan), which is visually portrayed as a Ketos dragon. Jonah is also depicted as emerging out of the Ketos’ mouth to find salvation (fig. 2). This iconographic type is consistent with the ancient Greek iconography of Hercules being swallowed by a dragon, as seen, for example, in an Attic black-figure kylix found in Taranto, and Jason emerging from the dragon’s mouth, as seen, for example, on the Douris cup (fig. 3).55 Jonah, in early Christianity, was the prefiguration of Jesus. The narrative of Jonah being swallowed by the big fish was seen as foreshadowing Jesus’s death and rebirth, as well as his descent into Hell.56 These notions inspired medieval iconographers in Western Europe to illustrate purgatory as a dragon’s open jaws, as seen, for example, in the image Hell in the Hours of Catherine of Cleves (fig. 4).57 Images of Jonah being swallowed by a sea monster later also emerged in early modern cartography, as seen, for instance, in the Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia of 1540, in an episode he placed on his map off the northern coast of Africa.58 Greco-Roman myths also endured throughout the Middle Ages, notably thanks to Ovid’s Metamorphoses.59 The dragon-slayer myth of Apollo and Python was subject to many Christian theological interpretations. Apollo was viewed as a symbol of Jesus, truth, light, good, and life, whereas Python was perceived as representative of deceit, darkness, evil, and chaos. The Benedictine Pierre Bersuiras, however, interpreted the same myth in an entirely different way: Apollo is presented as an evil being that destroys the sun, while Python is a benevolent creature that protects man from Apollo’s savage attack with arrows. These theological interpretations prove that the binary symbolic meanings of the dragon as either positive or negative endured over time, while being constantly challenged. Mary E. Barnard establishes a connection between the description of Python provided by Bersuiras and the in the Desert: An Image of Solitude,” in Einsamkeit, eds. Aleida Assmann and Jan Assmann (Munich: Fink, 2000), pp. 153–172. 55 Narkiss, “The Sign of Jonah”; Boardman, “‘Very Like a Whale’”; Scott B. Noegel, “Jonah and Leviathan,” Henoch, 37.2 (2015), pp. 236–260. 56 Luke 16:23; Peter 3:18–20. 57 Cynthia King, “Who Is That Cloaked Man?: Observations on Early Fifth Century B.C. Pictures of the Golden Fleece,” American Journal of Archaeology, 87.3 (July 1983), pp. 385–387; Alice K. Turner, The History of Hell (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993); Roger S. Wieck, Painted Prayers: The Book of Hours in Medieval and Renaissance Art (New York: George Braziller, 1997), pp. 66–70. 58 Chet Van Duzer, Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps (London: British Library, 2014), pp. 38–39. 59 Douglas Bush, Mythology and the Renaissance Tradition (New York: W. W. Norton, 1963); Mary E. Barnard, The Myth of Apollo and Daphne from Ovid to Quevedo: Love, Agon, and the Grotesque (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1987), pp. 19–81; Paul Barolsky, “Ovid’s Colors,” Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, 3.10.3 (Winter 2003), pp. 51–56; Paul Barolsky, “Ovid’s Web,” Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, 3.11.2 (Fall 2003), pp. 45–77.

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Figure 4 – Master of Catherine, “Hell,” ca. 1440, in Hours of Catherine of Cleves, The Netherlands, Utrecht, MS M.945, FOL.168v © akg-images.

three-headed dragon described by Francesco Petrarch in Africa, both of which were inspired by Macrobius’s Saturnalia. This dragon type would remain prevalent in early modern Italy.60 The medieval dragon has been studied from several perspectives. In his article “Semiotics and Traditional Lore: The Medieval Dragon Tradition,” Jonathan D. Evans examined the structure of dragon lore, focusing on German and northern European folk traditions pertaining to the dragon-slayer topos. In Dragons: Myth and Legend, Evans further investigates Western European stories concerning the encounters of male saints and folkloric male figures with dragons. These same themes were also examined in Martin Arnold’s The Dragon: Fear and Power. Herbert 60 Petrarch, Petrarch’s Africa, trans. and anno. Thomas G. Bergin and Alice S. Wilson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977): 3.157. Erwin Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955), pp. 146–168, particularly pp. 151–164; Barnard, The Myth of Apollo and Daphne, pp. 70–81; S. Cohen, Animals as Disguised, pp. 136–141.

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L. Kessler’s “Christ the Magic Dragon” offers a fascinating interpretation of the dragon in Christianity as a metaphor for Christ. Another intriguing subject is the theatrical display of mechanical dragons investigated by Philip Butterworth in his article “Late Medieval Performing Dragons.” Encounters between saints and dragons will be further addressed below.61 The schema characteristic of the early medieval iconography of the dragon-slayer is exemplified by the mosaic in Ravenna of Christus Victor, who tramples a snake and a lion. This schema follows the description of a victorious God trampling a snake and a lion, as it appears in Psalm 91:13 in the Old Testament: “You will tread on the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent.” This scene served as the basis for the traditional artistic iconography representing a human figure standing erect atop a horizontal dragon, usually after it has been vanquished, as can be seen, for example, in a tempera on panel icon depicting Saint George Trampling the Dragon dated to 1450–1499, now in the Benaki Museum at Athens. An unusual representation of the medieval dragon is found in depictions of the myth of Eden, the only iconographic source in which the dragon is portrayed as powerful, at least in the first part of the narrative. For instance, in the scene from Bishop Bernward’s bronze doors at the Cathedral in Hildesheim, Germany, on which God punishes the serpent, God is not portrayed as trampling the dragon.62 The myth of Eden will be discussed in detail in Chapter Five. One elite Roman combat unit, a legion named Draco, carried a pennant that featured a dragon distinguished by its apotropaic qualities.63 Images of dragons were also highly popular on medieval weapons, and their popularity continued into the early modern period. The apotropaic properties of the dragon image were also extended during this period to the images of monsters, frequently depicted on the exterior walls of churches in order to prevent demons from entering. These apotropaic qualities, it seems, originated in antiquity. Stephen R. Wilk translates the word “apotropaic” as “to turn away,” in the sense of “to ward off,” and relates it 61 Evans, “Semiotics and Traditional Lore”; Jonathan D. Evans, Dragons: Myth and Legend (London: Apple, 2008), pp. 116–183; Herbert L. Kessler, “Christ the Magic Dragon,” in “Making Thoughts, Making Pictures, Making Memories: A Special Issue in Honor of Mary J. Carruthers,” special issue, Gesta, 48.2 (2009), pp. 119–134; Butterworth, “Late Medieval Performing Dragons.” 62 Karen R. Joines, “The Serpent in the Old Testament,” ThD dissertation (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, 1967); Karen R. Joines, “The Bronze Serpent in the Israelite Cult,” Journal of Biblical Literature, 87.3 (1968), pp. 245–256; Gerhart B. Ladner, God, Cosmos, and Humankind: The World of Early Christian Symbolism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 73–77; Rut Bartal, Earthly Love–Divine Love: The Biblical Couple as Reflected in Western Art (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2009), pp. 37–61, 77–101 (in Hebrew); Daphna V. Arbel, Forming Femininity in Antiquity: Eve, Gender, and Ideologies in the Greek Life of Adam and Eve (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). 63 Raffaele D’Amato, Roman Standards & Standard-Bearers (2): AD 192–500 (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020), pp. 25–26.

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Figure 5 – Phidias, Medusa Rondanini, 500–475 BCE, a Roman marble copy of the bronze Gorgon’s head that decorated the shield of the Athena Parthenos statue on the Acropolis of Athens, Glyptothek, Munich (Inv. 252) © MatthiasKabel, public domain, Wikimedia.

to the Gorgon’s head.64 A well-known example of an image depicting this quality is that on Athena’s shield in the Parthenon Temple, created by Phidias and known as “Medusa Rondanini” (fig. 5), which will be elaborated upon below. In presenting the dragon image on arms, European royalty perpetuated the tradition of the dragon-slayer topos as a form of propaganda for the king, while maintaining the dragon’s apotropaic qualities and those associated with Agathos Daimon.65 64 Stephen R. Wilk, Medusa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 42. 65 Edward Topsell, The Historie of Serpents (London: Jaggard, 1608): 154. Malcolm South, ed., Topsell’s Histories of Beasts (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1981); Helmut Nickel, “Of Dragons, Basilisks, and the Arms of the Seven Kings of Rome,” Metropolitan Museum Journal, 24 (1989), pp. 25–34.

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The dragon’s apotropaic nature is most clearly articulated in the story of the copper snake, as told in the Book of Numbers 21:6–9. In this narrative, the Israelites arrive at a place overrun with snakes, and God tells Moses: “Make a fiery (Saraph) serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” This is a perfect example of recruiting an image of the enemy as an ally. Kessler convincingly proves that this episode was adopted into Christianity, with the snake serving as an emblem of Christ, as early as the time of the apostles. He further claims that the connection between the copper serpent and Christ is the reason for the S-shaped image of Jesus on the cross, which resembles a snake.66 In contrast to the wide range of studies concerning dragons in ancient and medieval cultures, the image of the dragon in early modernity has received little scholarly attention. Thus far, only three studies have addressed the subject, in a rather tentative manner: Delacampagne and Delacampagne’s Here Be Dragons summarizes changing attitudes toward monsters, including dragons, from ancient to modern times, yet subsumes dragons into this more general category without granting them specific attention.67 Another important investigation of this subject, Bernice F. Davidson’s Severo and the Sea-Monsters, presents compelling documents attesting to the persistent belief in the existence of dragons and other monsters during the early modern period. Louise W. Lippincott’s “The Unnatural History of Dragons” outlines images of dragons created from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century.68 Additionally, several reference books include entries on dragons: Gerd Heinz-Mohr’s Lessico di iconografia Cristiana, James Hall’s Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art, and Mirella Levi D’Ancona’s Lo Zoo del Rinascimento: Il significato degli animali nella pittura italiana dal XIV al XVI secolo agree that the medieval and early modern Christian cultures of Western Europe perceived dragons as symbols of the devil and of hell.69 This study challenges that assumption, contending that it is a too simplistic account for the complexity of dragon imagery in medieval and early modern Europe, and that this narrow interpretation is a result of the bias created by the dominant dragon-slayer topos. Saint George’s position was well established in early modernity in Italy, for example, he was among the most important of the Venetian and Florentine saints. 66 Numbers 21:6–9; John 3:14. Janetta R. Benton, “Gargoyles: Animal Imagery and Artistic Individuality in Medieval Art,” in Animals in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays, ed. Nona C. Flores (New York: Garland, 1996), pp. 147–165; Wilk, Medusa, p. 42; Kessler, “Christ the Magic Dragon”; David Leeming, Medusa: In the Mirror of Time (London: Reaktion, 2013), p. 45. 67 A. Delacampagne and C. Delacampagne, Here Be Dragons. 68 Louise W. Lippincott, “The Unnatural History of Dragons,” Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin, 77.334 (1981), pp. 2–24. 69 James Hall, Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art, intro. Kenneth Clark (London: J. Murray, 1975), p. 109; Gerd Heinz-Mohr, Lessicon di iconografia cristiana (Milan: Istituto Propaganda Libraria, 1982), pp. 143–145; Mirella Levi D’Ancona, Lo Zoo del Rinascimento: Il significato degli animali nella pittura italiana dal XIV al XVI secolo (Lucca: M. Pacini Fazzi, 2001), pp. 120–121.

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Figure 6 – Plataean Tripod at Delphoi, 1574, copy of a monument from Constantinople, described by Pierre Gilles, Freshfield Album, MS O.17.2, fol. 6, Trinity College Cambridge © Master and Fellows of Trinity College Cambridge.

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A detailed description of the festivals of Saint George circulated in Venice, where commemorative equestrian tournaments were held to enhance the connection between the Italian culture of knighthood and this saint. In Florence, a scene depicting Saint George decorated the city’s gate from the thirteenth century on. This scene was based on a statue of Mars, which was considered a protector of the city and was lost in a flood in November 1333. The Florentine belief that the city was protected by Saint George continued to endure for several centuries. Both Saint George and the Archangel Michael were often depicted, along with their dragons, in European art from the fourteenth century to the seventeenth century.70 Starting in ancient Greece, books concerned with astronomy offered many depictions of the constellation of Ketos, which visualizes the myth of Perseus and Andromeda.71 In the sixteenth-century, Guido Bonatti referred to the constellation Draco in Tractatus astronomie, contending that the body of the dragon contained within it the opposing forces of good and evil.72 Paul Stephenson investigated the location of the Draco constellation at the time of the battle of Plataia as the inspiration for the design of the Plataean tripod at Delphi, now lost (fig. 6).73 The belief in dragons held sway until the seventeenth century, and a good deal of apparently undisputed evidence for their existence continued to be offered. In Severo and the Sea-Monsters, Davidson presents a number of documented testimonies seemingly proving the existence of monsters from antiquity to early modernity.74 Aristotle and Pliny the Elder both provided alleged evidence for the existence of monsters.75 More than a millennia later, Petrarch continued this tradition in his 70 E. Armstrong, “La dignità cavalleresca nel comune di Firenze by Gaetano Salvemini,” English Historical Review, 12.47 (1897), pp. 552–555; Colin T. Eisler, Dürer’s Animals (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), p. 220; Ilaria Ciseri, “From the Pagan Idol to Donatello’s ‘Bronze Horse’: The Iconography of Condottieri in Florentine Sculpture in the Early 15th Century,” in The Springtime of the Renaissance: Sculpture and the Arts in Florence 1400–60, eds. Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi and Marc Bormand (Florence: Mandragora, 2013), pp. 131–149; Butterworth, “Late Medieval Performing Dragons.” See also note 50. 71 “Ketos,” in LIMC, VIII/1, pp. 731–736, VIII/2, pp. 496–501; Wilk, Medusa, pp. 129–143; Anna Caiozzo, “Autour des dragons célestes: Astronomie, astrologie, magie et imaginaire en Orient medieval,” in Good Dragons Are Rare: An Inquiry into Literary Dragons, East and West, eds. Thomas Honegger, and Chen Fanfan (Frankfurt: P. Lang, 2009), pp. 419–427; Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, pp. 163–165, source 109; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 38, 85, 164–165. 72 Bonatti, Tractatus astronomie (Venice: Melchior Sessa, 1506): fol. 26v. 73 A. Cook, Zeus, II, p. 194, fig. 134, and p. 195, fig. 135; Paul Stephenson, The Serpent Column: A Cultural Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 29–96. 74 Bernice F. Davidson, Severo and the Sea-Monsters, intro. Charles Ryskamp, technical notes. Richard E. Stone (New York: Frick Collection, 1997), pp. 23–25. 75 Aristotle, History of Animals: In Ten Books, trans. Richard Cresswell (Oxford, UK: St. John’s College, 2012): 8.12.231, 9.3; Pliny the Elder, Natural History, trans. Harris Rackham, William Henry Samuel Jones, and D. E. Eichholz (London: Heinemann, 1958–1966): 8.11–15, 9.4.

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Africa, describing where dragons dwelled.76 These texts were followed by bestiaries, theological treatises, and both actual and fictional travelogues, including the well-known volume by John Mandeville.77 There are also many dragon illustrations in Marco Polo’s memoirs, such as in fol. 55v from The Book of Sir Marco Polo, at the National Library of France, Paris, where all the images of animals described to the artist were depicted as dragons. Whereas a traveler could only describe what he had seen in words, the draftsman’s imagination led him to depict many animals as types of dragons.78 As Davidson argues, a kind of dragon actually had existed in the past – the creatures that are known today as dinosaurs! Davidson refers to Pliny’s account of a complete skeleton of “the monster to which Andromeda in the story was exposed,” being exhibited for all to see in the center of Rome. Pliny described the skeleton, brought from Jaffa by Marcus Scaurus, as forty feet long with ribs that were taller than an elephant. This description, which probably refers to a complete skeleton of either a whale or a dinosaur, provided definitive proof at the time of the existence of dragons.79 Nonetheless, as Davidson also notes, much evidence was also fabricated over time – as was the case, for example, with the alleged skeleton of a mermaid from the collection of the Medicis. The tradition of exhibiting sea monsters continued during the early modern period, as in the case of the documented display of a sea serpent in Venice in 1530.80 The popularity of dragons, as well as other sea monsters, was also made overwhelmingly evident in the cartography of the late medieval period and of early modernity. In his book Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps, Chet Van Duzer assembles an impressive array of images, descriptions and recollections depicting sea monsters in relation to cartography, and further proving that the existence of dragons was validated and accepted as a reality as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He describes how realistic encounters with whales and sharks were interwoven with myths about an infinite number of fantastic sea monsters, from Homer’s Odyssey and its description of Scylla and Charybdis,81 to Ptolemy’s Geography (transcribed and illustrated in Florence in 1455–1460), to Olaus 76 Petrarch, Petrarch’s Africa: 3.157–173. 77 John Mandeville, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, ed. Ernest C. Coleman (Stroud: Nonsuch, 2006): 52–54.4. 78 Marco Polo, The Book of Sir Marco Polo (Paris: Venetian, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 1254–1323): fol. 55v. A. Delacampagne and C. Delacampagne, Here Be Dragons, pp. 52–54, 57–74; Warner J. Christopher, The Augustinian Epic, Petrarch to Milton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005), pp. 20, 174. 79 Pliny the Elder, Natural History: 9:4. 80 Christ Froschoverum, Historiae animalium (Zurich: Apud, 1551–1587): 4.543–544. Davidson, Severo and the Sea-Monsters, pp. 23–25; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 116–118. 81 Homer, The Odyssey, ed. Martin Litchf ield West, trans. Samuel Butler (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017): 12.600–630.

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Magnus’s nine-sheet map describing northwestern Europe (produced in Venice in 1539). All locate sea dragons in remote and rarely visited places.82 The theme of the dragon as living in the wilderness flourished in Europe; for example, almost every mappa mundi showed the dragon as the symbol of the desert – a term referring to locales deserted by civilization, devoid of a human presence, and ruled by chaos and death. In the eyes of ancient and medieval European cultures, these areas included China and southern parts of Africa.83 Yet the desert is not just a physical location, but also a social site. The dragon, like other monsters, symbolizes the adversary, and thus represents social otherness.84 Dragons were thus vividly depicted in collective mental imagery in medieval and early modern Europe, emblematizing fears and past failures while representing the opposite of what humans – or more specifically men – believed themselves to be. The dragon persevered as an active sign, which was constantly remolded as it came to be associated with different qualities and symbols in a range of cultural contexts. Key to the current book is a focus on the ways in which the meaning of this sign changes when the relationship between a man and a dragon is replaced by that of woman and dragon. As this book will suggest, images of women with dragons counter the line of interpretation associated with the topos of the dragon slayer, and reveal a range of elaborate meanings that were associated with these creatures during a succession of historical periods. The basic structure of the dragon-slayer topos represents the dragon as the principal adversary of a male protagonist. Over time, however, the dragon came to be portrayed not merely as rising up in opposition to the hero, but as an evil opponent that must be destroyed. As this survey of the multiple meanings of dragons has demonstrated, however, the dragon-slayer topos represents only one aspect of the wide range of meanings attached to images of dragons. As the discussion in this chapter has demonstrated, when a man is represented alongside a dragon, the nature of their encounter is mostly based on animosity, differentiation, and a binary, oppositional structure in which the male represents positive aspects 82 Eugene W. Gudger, “Jenny Hanivers, Dragons, and Basilisks in the Old Natural History Books and in Modern Times,” Scientific Monthly, 38.6 (1934), pp. 551–523; Felice Grondona, “Basilischi artificiali all’esame radiograf ico,” Physis, 11 (1969), pp. 249–266; Steven C. Levi, “P. T. Barnum and the Feejee Mermaid,” Western Folklore, 36 (1977), pp. 149–154; Jan Bondeson, The Feejee Mermaid and Other Essays in Natural and Unnatural History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014), pp. 36–63; Van Duzer, Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps. 83 Barasch, “The Hermit in the Desert,” pp. 153–172. These civilizations were as advanced as medieval Europe, yet were perceived by European cultures at the time as marking the “ends of the world,” and were associated with the desert; see Theresa Bane, Encyclopedia of Beasts and Monsters in Myth, Legend and Folklore (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016), p. 7. 84 Jeffrey J. Cohen, ed., Monster Theory: Reading Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996).

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while the dragon is associated with the negative aspects of the “other.” Women, by contrast, do not fight dragons; as the following chapters will reveal, they strive instead for union, collaboration, and communication, sometimes even fusing with the mythical being. It is thus necessary to examine the motif of the woman and the dragon as connected to various other aspects of the dragon – both negative and positive – in order to understand the nature of the relationship between these two figures. Chapter Two will strive to demonstrate the collaborative nature of the relationship between women and dragons, focusing on the sacred aspects of their union.

2.

The Cave and the Womb: The Myth of Cadmus and the Myth of Apollo and Python Abstract: This chapter attends to the myth of Cadmos and to the myth of Apollo and Python. My analysis of the Cadmos myth sheds light on the intriguing visual iconography of the woman and the dragon, and on the recurrence of symbolic motifs such as the cow and the cave in myths associated with a Great Goddess. My discussion of the Apollo and Python (or Delphina) myth suggests that Python is a representation of a Great Mother Goddess, while also considering the ritualistic role of the Pythia and her mythical connection with the dragon. The scope of the discussion is broadened by an examination of Greco-Roman religious rituals and sanctuaries characterized by a unique and holy relationship between women and dragons. Key Words: Cadmos, cow, Apollo, Pythia, Great Goddess, Python, cave

Whereas male protagonists in Greco-Roman antiquity fight dragons, as demonstrated in the previous chapter, female protagonists do not. Rather, as this chapter and the following two chapters contend, female protagonists communicate and collaborate with dragons, becoming fused with them. This relationship is represented through the motif of the woman and the dragon. This motif includes three different types, which all feature a woman and a dragon together with a recurrent set of attributes, and in relation to particular settings. The following discussion centers on the type I describe as “the holy woman,” which serves as the basis for the two other types. It examines the symbolic analogy between woman, dragon and cave, with an emphasis on scenarios charged with sacred, oracular, protective, and healing properties. More specifically, the discussion focuses on the etiological myths of Cadmos and of Apollo and Python, which are both establishing foundation myths (terminus ante quem). The foundations for the investigation of the Cadmos myth and the Apollo and Python myth were first laid by Joseph Fontenrose’s Python, which is

Khalifa-Gueta, S., The Woman and the Dragon in Premodern Art. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023. doi 10.5117/9789463723572_ch02

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complemented by Neil Forsyth’s The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth.1 Both scholars investigated the origin and development of the dragon-slayer topos, and related it to the symbolism of the cave. However, neither of these studies attends to the feminine aspects of this metaphorical setting, which will be elaborated upon below.

Cadmos – Following the Cow to the Cave The myth of Cadmos and its visual renditions are among the most stable and consistent mythical accounts of the Greco-Roman period. The following analysis beings with an examination of the first part of the myth, which concerns the establishment of Thebes; I then go on to explore the second part of the myth, which has a larger number of variations, and which concerns the anguish experienced later on by Cadmos and his wife Harmonia, and their transformation into snakes. Fontenrose’s Python documents earlier related myths in Pheonicia, from which Cadmos originated according to the Greek myth.2 Homer refers to the Thebans in the Iliad as Kadmeioi, which suggests that the myth was familiar in the Peloponnese from at least as early as the eighth century BCE, even though the myth recounted in the Odyssey concerning the establishment of Thebes does not mention Cadmos himself.3 In Hesiod’s Theogony, Cadmos is described as married to Harmonia.4 The earliest literary and visual evidence of this narrative dates to the beginning of the fifth century BCE. However, Timothy Gantz’s claim that the myth was already known in its final version as early as the seventh century BCE is quite convincing.5 The myth of the establishment of Thebes starts in Phoenicia, where Zeus, disguised as a bull, abducts Cadmos’ sister Europa. Cadmos’ father sends him to 1 Joseph Fontenrose, Python (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); Neil Forsyth, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987); Yulia Ustinova, Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind: Descending Underground in the Search for Ultimate Truth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 2 Fontenrose, Python, pp. 306–320, particularly p. 307. 3 Homer, The Iliad, trans. A.T. Murray, doctoral dissertation (Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924): 14.323. 4 Hesiod, “Theogony,” in Hesiod, ed. and trans. Glenn W. Most (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018): 1.933–937. 5 Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), II, pp. 467–468; Sarantis Symeonoglou, The Topography of Thebes from the Bronze Age to Modern Times (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 45, (Sarantis Symeonoglou proclaims Thebes is located precisely on a Minoan smaller palace at Knossos); Daniel Ogden, Drakōn: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 49.

The Cave and the Womb: The My th of Cadmus and the My th of Apollo and Py thon 

retrieve his sister, but since he has no idea where she is, he goes to the Delphic Oracle (the Pythia) for guidance. The Pythia has no information about his sister’s whereabouts, but tells him to follow a young cow and to establish a city where that cow lies down to rest. He follows a wandering heifer, and when the heifer rests, he asks his men to fetch water from a nearby spring in order to prepare a sacrifice to Athena. The spring is a holy one, guarded by a dragon that is devoted to Ares (and usually considered his son). Cadmos’ men are attacked by the dragon and killed, and Cadmos arrives at the spring to find them all slaughtered; in his rage, he f ights and kills the dragon with rocks, one or two spears, or with his sword, according to different versions. Athena (sometimes with Ares) advises Cadmos to seed the dragon’s teeth in the earth, which he does. From this earth there arise fully grown soldiers or giants named the Spartoi – “sown men.” The men turn to battle each other until only five are left, becoming the founders of Thebes.6 The second part of the myth concerns the result of Ares’s wrath over the death of his son/guardian. Ares sends a Sphinx to terrorize Thebes. According to Palaephatus, the Sphinx was actually an Amazon queen who had wed Cadmos and had tried to take possession of Thebes. When Cadmos later wed Harmonia, the Amazon became furious and declared war on Thebes.7 Pausanias also wrote about the Sphinx who tried to take over the city.8 The myth of the Sphinx, however, excluded what most sources corroborate: that Cadmos was married to Harmonia, daughter of Aphrodite and Ares, making her a half-sister to the dragon. Most sources mention that Cadmos’ life in Thebes was not peaceful; some indicate that Cadmos had to make amends to Ares for a prolonged period of time or that his life was filled with misfortune, mostly as a result of Ares’s anger. As a result, the couple ends up living in exile in Illyria. They become the rulers of Illyria and fight many enemies, from local tribes 6 For additional primary texts concerned with this myth, see Euripides, Phoenissae, ed. intro. and comm. Donald J. Mastronarde (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 638–675, 818–821, 931–941, 1006–1012, 1060–1066; Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. A. D. Melville, intro. and notes. Edward J. Kenney (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998): 3.28–98; Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca, trans. William H. D. Rouse, intro. Herbert J. Rose, notes. Herbert J. Rose and Levi R. Lind (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962–1963): 4.348–463; Palaephatus, On Unbelievable Tales, trans. intro. and comm. Jacob Stern (Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 1996): 33–35.3; Apollodorus of Athens, The Library, ed. and trans. James G. Frazer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014): 3.4.1, credits Hellanicus Boeoriaca, but confuses his work with Homer’s Iliad. Daniel Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers in the Classical and Early Christian Worlds: A Sourcebook (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 109–118: pts. 75–80; Thalia Papadopoulou, Euripides: Phoenician Women (London: Duckworth, 2014). 7 Palaephatus, On Unbelievable Tales: 3. 8 Pausanias, Description of Greece, trans. and eds. William H. S. Jones, Henry A. Ormerod, and Richard E. Wycherley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 9.26.2–4.

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Figure 7 – Python Painter, Cadmos Combats the Dragon, with Harmonia, 350–340 BCE, Paestan red-figure calyx krater, Collection Durand: Musée du Louvre, Paris (N.3157) © Bibi Saint-Pol, public domain, Wikimedia.

to the army of Delphi itself. Eventually, their own grief or Ares’ curse causes the couple to metamorphose into snakes.9 Although it is generally agreed that the first visual representations of the myth dates to the early fifth century BCE, two black-figured vases from the sixth century BCE may portray Cadmos: a Chalcidian black-figured amphora, dated to 560–550 BCE, and the Cavaliers Painter’s Laconian black-figured cup, dated to 550–540 BCE, both in the Musée du Louvre. The Chalcidian amphora painting is obscure, 9 Ovid, Metamorphoses: 4:590–603. Gantz, Early Greek Myth, II, p. 468; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 52–54. Fontenrose claimed the sphinx was identified by the name Kassmia, which appears on a vase painting in the Berlin Museum (inv. 3186); see Fontenrose, Python, p. 310, n. 66.

The Cave and the Womb: The My th of Cadmus and the My th of Apollo and Py thon 

and the only indication that it might be related to Cadmos are the dots underneath the dragon, which could allude to the sowing of the dragon’s teeth. The image on the Laconian cup, meanwhile, has been recognized by some as that of Apollo fighting Python and Delphyne, a plausible identification considering Fontenrose’s hypothesis of double-dragon combat and the reclamation of a temple, which will be addressed below. Nonetheless, Apollo is usually presented naked, not as a fully dressed soldier, while the image of the temple may be an early version of the site later represented as a cave.10 The first artistic representation identified by Ogden as Cadmos is a white-ground cup by the Sotades Painter, dated to 450–440 BCE and now in the British Museum, London, yet only a fragment of this work remains.11 A calyx krater attributed to the Python Painter (fig. 7), from the middle of the fourth century BCE, presents an iconography similar to that on the cup by the Sotades painter, which remained consistent from the mid-fifth century BCE until the late antique period. The Python Painter’s composition portrays Cadmos with one raised hand holding a weapon, in this case a rock, and a water amphora in his other hand. Naked except for a cape and a pointed hat (pilos), Cadmos confronts a large, bearded serpent12 in front of a pile of rocks symbolic of a mountain or a spring. The serpent’s proximity to the mountain seems to indicate that it is either inside it or guarding it from outside; yet what he seems to be guarding is not the mountain itself, but the cave within it or perhaps even the tree growing on it. Appearing beside Cadmos is a female figure, sometimes identified as Harmonia, whereas the female figure beside the dragon is usually identified as a prefiguration of Thebes. Above the main scene is a register with a bust of Aphrodite, flanked by a bust of Hermes to her right and a bust of Pan and a young Satyr to her left.13 The Python Painter continued an earlier iconographic tradition while introducing an interesting element: the woman beside Cadmos, who is sometimes identified as Harmonia, holds something resembling a phiale (patera), a sacrificial object often used for feeding a serpent. The woman standing beside the dragon is intriguing, particularly since Pan is located directly above her. Significantly, almost all of Cadmos’ representations on vase paintings from the fourth century BCE similarly include a woman beside or above the dragon. This f igure is usually seated, as demonstrated, for instance, by a hydria in the Berlin’s State Museum (fig. 9), and by a bell-krater from the National Archaeology Museum, Naples. Although the painting 10 “Kadmos i,” in Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae (LIMC) (Zurich: Artemis, 1981–1999), V/1, pp. 866–867, figs. 11, 18; Fontenrose, Python, pp. 407–412. 11 “Kadmos i,” in LIMC, V/1, p, 867, fig. 13; Ogden, Drakōn, p. 50. 12 For Ogden’s discussion of the bearded serpent, see Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 155–161. 13 “Kadmos i,” in LIMC, V/1, p. 868, V/2, fig. 25.

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Figure 8 – Cassel Painter, Cadmos and Ares’s Dragon and the Oracle, 443–430 BCE, red-figure bell-krater, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (22.139.11) © Met: public-domain – permission from photographer – Galia Bilbul.

on the hydria from the State Museum identifies this figure as “Thebe,”14 even Ogden found this identification questionable for a female figure seated in proximity to a dragon, particularly since this composition departs from the iconographical convention that presents Cadmos facing a woman who is seated with a dragon, as in the Cassel Painter’s bell-krater painting Cadmos and Ares’s Dragon and the Oracle (fig. 8).15 This red-figure painting, dated to 443–430 BCE and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (fig. 8), offers an enigmatic portrayal of Cadmos. He is holding a weapon in accordance with the familiar iconographic convention, yet he is not actively engaged in combat, even though he appears to be striding forward. Facing him is a woman who contemplates him with her hand on her cheek, in a philosopher’s pose. Seated on a rock, she is depicted leaning on a dragon, and seems 14 “Kadmos i,” in LIMC, V/1, p. 867, fig. 19. 15 Ogden, Drakōn, p. 167.

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to experience no fear in reaction to Cadmos. The female figure and the dragon blend harmoniously together, like two complementary parts of a single whole. This puzzling painting serves as a gateway to the following discussion, which demonstrates how a female figure is joined together with a dragon, a cave, and an oracular event to form a complex visual motif.16 A similar iconography can be seen in the Spreckles Painter’s calyx-krater painting in the Metropolitan Museum, as well as on a hydria painting in the Louvre.17 Ogden dedicates an entire chapter to the connection between dragons and the element of water, particularly rivers and springs, providing extensive evidence to establish dragons as guardians of springs or as conceptualizations of springs. In this context, the water amphora held by Cadmos in the Python Painter’s composition was part of the iconography intended to show the centrality of water in this myth. Ogden, like others, suggests that the female figure in this painting is a personification of the spring of Dirce, in the vicinity of Thebes. He bases his argument on the identification of the figure as Thebes on the State Museum vase painting (fig. 9), as well as on literary identifications of the spring as Dirce. However, the scene contains no other allusions to the story of Dirce. Ogden describes this iconography as a seductive scenario featuring a dragon-like figure associated with Medusa/Lamia, because of the hand gesture made by the woman toward an innocent Cadmos in the Louvre hydria painting (fig. 10). He suggests that the spring is luring Cadmos to approach it, so that the dragon could ambush him.18 This interpretation, however, ignores the fact that the dragon guarded the sacred spring against violation, so that a female personification of the spring is a holy woman, who would not engage in such seductive behavior. Furthermore, in the Cassel Painter’s bell-krater painting (fig. 8), the woman is seated calmly and does not gesture toward Cadmos, and her hand touches her chin in a pensive pose. In the Spreckles Painter’s calyx krater, the female figure beside the dragon is also calm, does not gesture toward Cadmos, and in fact draws away from him. Cadmos’ dead comrades do not appear anywhere in the scene. The iconographic elements described above (fig. 7) all consistently appear in visual representations of Cadmos, with no significant variations. These include images represented on small objects such as gems, magical amulets (such as one from the Berlin State Museum), and coins (such as one from Phoenicia), as well as on additional types of objects from the fourth century BCE on. The consistency of Cadmos’ iconography over a prolonged time period is alone proof of the existence of a larger artwork that was probably well-known for many centuries. Based on the 16 “Harmonia,” in LIMC, IV/1, p. 622, IV/2, fig. 4; “Kadmos i,” in LIMC, V/2, fig. 17. 17 “Kadmos i,” in LIMC, V/1, p. 867, fig. 18; “Harmonia,” in LIMC, IV/1, p. 622, IV/2, fig. 1. 18 Ogden elaborates on the malevolent nature of Dirce’s acts and on the fact that her dead body was transformed into a river; see Ogden, Drakōn, p. 168, n. 124.

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literary and visual evidence discussed thus far, I will now turn to further explore the symbolic charge of a number of elements appearing in the sources – most notably the cave, the spring, the cow, and the sowing of the dragon’s teeth, probing their connection to “the woman and the dragon” motif. The following discussion elaborates on the cave as a symbol of fertility, genesis, pregnancy and childbirth, as well as of the transition between life and death. The cave is central to artistic representations of the Cadmos myth, and is related to a spring that flows from it and to the dragons inhabiting it.

Figure 9 – Cadmos and Harmonia in Front of Athens and a Dragon behind Her, 420–415 BCE, red-figure hydria, Berlin State Museum (F. 2634) © Staatliche Museen.

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Figure 10 – Cadmos and the Personification of a Spring, 420–410 BCE, red-figure hydria, Musée du Louvre, Paris (M.12) © Met: public-domain.

The Greco-Roman conceptualization of caves, as investigated in Yulia Ustinova’s Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind: Descending Underground in the Search for Ultimate Truth, underscores the need to provide a mythical explanation for psychological and neuro-psychological phenomena, while exploring their anthropological aspects. Ustinova’s book discusses the cave as a liminal, transitional space that gives rise to a liminal consciousness and experience, and generates a particular type of imaginal experience.19 She further describes the transitory state of entering such 19 Ustinova, Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind, pp. 13–52.

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an unknown location as offering a particular perceptual experience: the human eye struggles to see, and is forced to move in a zig-zag pattern, particularly while following the flickering motion of a light source such as a torch, which produces a mental image of a snakelike shape, so that “a zigzag may be perceived as a snake.”20 The experience of entering a cave also appeals to other senses: the sound of dripping water produced by the humid environment echoes in the silence, and the air is pervaded by the smell of mildew. Additionally, one is forced to slow down one’s movement, so that time itself seems to slow down. In analyzing the role and function of caves in the Greco-Roman cultural context, Ustinova presents documentation concerning caves as oracular locations. In addition, she notes that the nymphs and Pan, who are strongly associated with oracular caves, were viewed as existing outside the social structure, and were therefore believed to inspire states of liminal consciousness and visions. Caves, as Ustinova further reveals, were also considered entrances to the world of the dead, with whom oracles were assumed to converse.21 The fact that snakes were considered to be tricksters that transition between the world above ground and the underworld, and dwell in lairs, led to myths that associated caves with dragons, and to their perception as sites where conversations with the dead could take place.22 Given the connection of caves to Pan and the nymphs and to holy oracular locations that offered knowledge of other spheres, it seems relevant that the Python Painter’s calyx krater (fig. 7) depicts Pan above the personification of the spring and the dragon’s cave. This resonates with Marjeta Šašel Kos’s claim that the story of Cadmos and Harmonia in Illyria developed in relation to a local snake cult.23 I suggest that the city of Thebes might have been established in proximity to a cave and a spring that were sacred and oracular, hence the analogies between the victory over the dragon and the conquest of the land. This suggestion is consistent with Forsyth’s theory of the “dragon-fighter” topos as a resolution of the cognitive dissonance between the need for water and trees in order to establish and maintain a city, and the realization that they came from a location considered holy.24 The experience of being inside a cave and of emerging back out of it may also be related to the experience of the womb and of birth. Although human birth is not a consciously remembered experience, an implicit memory of this process – progressing in a narrow tunnel toward the light – may have contributed to creating this association, thus further enhancing the symbolism of the cave as 20 Ibid., p. 29. 21 Ibid., pp. 55–68. 22 For the connection between dragons and caves, see Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 161–165. 23 Marjeta Šašel Kos, “Draco and the Survival of the Serpent Cult in the Central Balkans,” Tyche, 6 (1991), pp. 183–192. 24 Forsyth, The Old Enemy, pp. 38–42.

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the Great mother and as a representation of the great womb of the earth. The symbolic parallel between the cave and the Great mother is also echoed by the sign of the cow.25 The Cadmos myth starts with a bull, which was an indisputable sign of power in Mesopotamia, and was also often identified with Zeus.26 The narrative proceeds to mention the Oracle’s explicit instruction to find a young cow (the Pythia specifically mentions a heifer, a virgin cow, a fact that merits further investigation). Throughout the ancient Euro-Asia-Africa region, the cow symbolized a Magna Mater as the source of all life and as the great womb. This phenomenon is widespread, including Kali, who is still considered sacred in India today; the Egyptian Hathor; Latona, Leda, or Leto – all cow-imaged Great Mothers worshipped in the area extending from the Peloponnese to Latium. Indeed, the Etruscan Great Goddess Lat is the etymological source of the name Italy, which means “calf-land,” alluding to a Roman establishment myth that is similar to the Cadmos myth. The continent Europa was named after Cadmos’ sister, who was kidnapped by Zeus in the guise of a bull and was later transformed into a cow named Io, the Great Mother of the Ionians. Archaic images of Juno (the Roman variation of Hera) presented her as crowned with a cow’s horns in association with the moon, as seen in an Etruscan high relief in the Villa Giulia, dated to the fifth century BCE.27 The best example of the union between Great Goddesses of fertility, the cave and the cow is the Egyptian cow Goddess Hathor. Hathor is the most widely addressed of several Great Mother goddesses in ancient Egypt, which are all linked to one another. Her transformation into the Uraeus cobra and her alliance with Wadjet – the cobra fertility goddess – seem highly relevant for this investigation, providing the basis for a visual schema that persisted in Greco-Roman times and beyond.28 Her symbolic attributes, metamorphosis, and mythical functions demonstrate how associations between caves, the great womb, cows and dragons have existed from the dawn of human civilization. Barbara S. Lesko claimed that the attribute of the cow originated in the pre-dynastic goddess Bat (whose name means “feminine power” or “female soul”), or Mehet-Weret, who was still considered 25 Erich Neumann, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, trans. Ralph Manheim (New York: Pantheon, 1955), pp. 151–157, 215–217; Barbara G. Walker, The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983), pp. 180–182; Hermann Kern, Through the Labyrinth: Designs and Meanings over 5,000 Years, trans. Abigail H. Clay, Sandra Burns Thomson, and Kathrin A. Velder (Munich: Prestel, 2000), pp. 30–31; Ustinova, Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind, p. 3, n. 14. 26 Arthur B. Cook, Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1914–1940), pp. 436–444; Marija Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess (London: Thames and Hudson, 1989), pp. 267–270. 27 A. Cook, Zeus, pp. 444–447; “Iuno,” in LIMC, V/2, figs. 1–20. 28 Neumann, The Great Mother.

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important in the New Kingdom. This Great Mother cow goddess was addressed in the Book of the Celestial Cow as represented, for instance, in the eighteenth dynasty on the walls of Tutankhamun’s tomb.29 Near-Eastern goddesses such as Tiamat and Astar, who were worshipped in areas geographically closer to Greece, share the same qualities.30 Hathor is not only the Great Mother of all life, but also the second mother of every human being, for the tomb of a dead person was considered the womb of Hathor, where those deemed worthy incubated and were reborn into the world of the dead. Thus, when entering an ancient Egyptian tomb, be it a death temple from the Middle Kingdom, or an underground burial chamber of the eighteenth dynasty, the dead were viewed as entering a real or metaphorical cave, which alluded to the womb of Hathor. In addition to representing the cave as a womb, Hathor also governs mining, particularly of metals such as gold. She is the goddess of beauty, love, and sex, and is considered the eye of Ra, serving as his mother, bride, and daughter.31 Hathor is also responsible for music, dance, and ecstasy, experiences similar to those associated with Pan, the Nymphs, Dionysus and his entourage. Another aspect of Hathor is her metamorphosis into Sakmet and the Uraeus cobra. Additional deities manifest different aspects of this Great Goddess: the two ladies Nekhbet and Wadjet, the vulture and the cobra, represent upper and lower Egypt, as well as heaven and the underworld. Wadjet’s anguiform figure, which possesses the head of a woman and a serpentine body, requires further investigation (fig. 11).32

29 Alison Roberts, Hathor Rising: The Power of the Goddess in Ancient Egypt (Devon: Northgate, 1995), p. 34; Barbara S. Lesko, The Great Goddesses of Egypt (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999), pp. 23–24, 81–82. 30 Neumann, The Great Mother. 31 Lana Troy, Patterns of Queenship in Ancient Egyptian Myth and History (Uppsala: Universitet; Stockholm: Almquist and Wiksell International, 1986), pp. 53–61; Military J. R. Galvin, “Addendum,” in Women’s Earliest Records from Ancient Egypt and Western Asia, ed. Barbara S. Lesko (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1989), pp. 28–30, particularly p. 29; Orly Goldwasser, From Icon to Metaphor: Studies in the Semiotics of the Hieroglyphs (Fribourg: University of Fribourg Press, 1995), pp. 116–123; Roberts, Hathor Rising, pp. 26–29; Lesko, The Great Goddesses of Egypt, pp. 81–129. The theme of the Great Mother as a womb is also discussed from a Greek perspective in Ruth Padel, In and Out of the Mind: Greek Images of the Tragic Self (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), pp. 99–102; Eva Parisinou, The Light of the Gods: The Role of Light in Archaic and Classical Greek Cult (London: Duckworth, 2000), pp. 45–48. 32 Roberts, Hathor Rising, pp. 8, 11–14, 21, 66–68, 75–78; Troy, Patterns of Queenship, pp. 115–125; Lesko, The Great Goddesses of Egypt, pp. 22–44, 64–80, 103, 117–120 (Lesko claims that both Nekhbet and Wadjet presided over Hathor, becoming extensions of her); Carolyn Graves-Brown, Dancing for Hathor: Women in Ancient Egypt (London: Continuum, 2010). Alison M. Roberts presents sources in which Hathor is referred to as “the starry snake goddess of the night,” and mentions that the name for the Uraeus is “Iaret,” meaning “to rise” (Roberts, Hathor Rising, pp. 26, 66).

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Figure 11 – Wadjet/Meretseger/Werethekau/Renenutet as Winged Female Cobra, eighteenth dynasty, 1361–1352 BCE, gold sheet, embossed and chased from the tomb of Tutankhamun, placed over the neck of the king’s mummy, Egyptian Museum, Cairo © agefotostock/Alain Guilleux.

Hathor is sometimes represented fully as a cow, and not only as a woman with cow’s horns. One such example is the statue in the death temple of Tuthmosis III from the eighteenth dynasty, which has a chapel dedicated to her. The chapel is constructed in the form of a cylindrical cave, with a statue of Hathor as a cow at its center; the Pharaoh, or his son Amenhotep II, suckles at her breast. The King also appears under the cow’s head, as if she is his Uraeus, looking forward to his rebirth in the Field of Reeds.33 Wadjet, the lady of Upper Egypt (fig. 11) is a fertility goddess assimilated to Hathor or forming part of her entourage. She sometimes appears in the form of a cobra, and sometimes as an anguiped cobra with the face of a woman. She usually decorates the eyebrows of the king and queen, and plays a maternal role toward the Pharaoh. A golden pendant found in the tomb of Tutankhamun (fig. 12) depicts Weret-Hekau, represented like the anguiped Wadjet, breastfeeding Tutankhamun. Lesko finds that 33 Troy, Patterns of Queenship, pp. 53–61, particularly 55; Roberts, Hathor Rising, pp. 47–51.

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the connection between the image of fertility goddesses and snakes has prehistoric roots that go back to South Sudan. She demonstrates that the cobra image is always associated with ancient Great Mother Goddesses, and relates her findings to Marija Gimbutas’s argument, in The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, 6500–3500 B.C., that the serpent figure is associated with the Great Mother Goddess in European cultures. One of several such examples is the ancient Babylonian goddess statue from Ur, made between 4000 and 3500 BCE, which represents one of the earliest manifestations of this motif (fig. 13). With a serpentine head and a woman’s body, this image of an entity breastfeeding a baby alludes to the extreme antiquity of the iconology of the woman and the serpent and to the extensive geographical territory where it seems to be a deeply rooted in mental construction.34 Another important manifestation of Hathor is the sycamore tree, with its breastshaped fruits and milky liquid. The iconographic formula in underground chambers, such as in the secco from the tomb of Sennedjem, dated to the nineteenth dynasty (1279–1213 BCE), presents the goddess herself as the sycamore tree. Indeed, this connection between the goddess and the tree was so obvious that sometimes only the tree was represented. The sycamore tree is the gate to the passage between the tomb-cave and the world beyond, and is thus related to later understandings of trees, along with flowers, fruits and seeds, as related to the cycle of the seasons and of life and death in cosmology myths of creation. As late as the twentieth century, a sacred sycamore tree existed near Cairo, and was associated with the Virgin Mary.35 The secco that depicts Hathor as a vegetative-like sycamore tree, offering the gift of the sycamore fruit to the Ka of Sennedjem and his wife, was meant to grant the couple resurrection. The anguiform, a woman combined with snake or plant imagery, has been analyzed in Ustinova’s article “Snake-Limbed and Tendril-Limbed Goddesses in the Art and Mythology of the Mediterranean and Black Sea.” These eschatological images unify elements of fertility, death, and rebirth. They represent a deity that symbolized the connection of the higher spheres of heaven with the earthly spheres of the underworld and the world of the dead through the image of the serpent moving between spheres, and of plants rooted in the underworld and reaching 34 Marija Gimbutas, The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, 6500–3500 B.C. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), p. 112; Adele Getty, Goddess: Mother of Living Nature (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990), pp. 12–13; Sally B. Johnson, The Cobra Goddess of Ancient Egypt: Predynastic, Early Dynastic, and Old Kingdom Periods (London: Kegan Paul International, 1990); Lesko, The Great Goddesses of Egypt, pp. 69–76. 35 Lesko, The Great Goddesses of Egypt, pp. 84–88; Catherine Norvell, “Lady of the Sycamore: The Goddess Hathor and Her Association with the Sacred Sycamore,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the 59th Annual Meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt (Grand Hyatt Seattle, Seattle, Washington, April 2008): http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p237575_index.html.

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Figure 12 – Weret-Hekau Breastfeeding Tutankhamun, 1323 BCE, a gold pendant from the tomb of Tutankhamun, Egyptian Museum, Cairo (JE 61952; Exhib. 85) © Griffith Institute, University of Oxford.

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Figure 13 – Anguiped Breastfeeding, Early Warka period, 4000–3500 BCE, terracotta statue from Ur, Iraq Museum, Baghdad © Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), public domain.

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for the heavens. Images from Scythia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt manifest this combination of a snake or a vegetal image and a female figure as connected to the cycle of life and death and to the notion of fertility.36 This discussion sheds light on the image of Cadmos confronting a woman who calmly leans on a dragon and personifies a cave-womb with a water spring, supporting my suggestion that this female figure symbolizes fertility and the act of establishment, as well as the connection between the spheres. The sign of the cow that recurs in the Cadmos myth further connects it to aspects of fertility and resurrection and to the Great Mother. The scholion to Euripides’s Phoinissai offers eight lines of the oracle given to Cadmos, which explain that the cow had white, round marks resembling the moon on each side of her neck, further underscoring the symbolic connection between the moon, the cow, and the Great Mother.37 In this context, a myth combining the establishment of a city with symbols of a Great Mother implies the conquest of a fruitful land previously owned by the Great Mother, similar to “the previous owner” myth of the Delphic oracle, which will be further discussed below. As I would like to argue, the dragon that must be fought and vanquished in the Cadmos myth is a manifestation of the Great Mother – nature, a virgin land, or Gaia, the earth goddess – who has to be defeated in order to establish a city.38 Another sign related to the theme of fertility and resurrection is the dragon’s teeth, which are sown in the earth (Gaia) and give rise to the men of Thebes, further underscoring the connection between snakes and agriculture. The sowing of the dragon’s teeth recurs in the myth of Jason and the Colchis dragon, where it also symbolizes fertility aspects of the dragon, and should be investigated in light of the dragon’s connections with Demeter, Triptolemos, and Persephone.39 The dragons of Demeter, the goddess of fertility and agriculture, are widely portrayed, particularly in connection with Triptolemos, her representative and disciple, who spread the knowledge of agriculture around the world. Beginning in the fifth century BCE, his typical portrayal as flying in a chariot was replaced by a chariot driven by two winged dragons, as demonstrated in the tondo painting on the Aberdeen Painter Attic cup in the Musée du Louvre, among others.40 The association 36 Yulia Ustinova, “Snake-Limbed and Tendril-Limbed Goddesses in the Art and Mythology of the Mediterranean and Black Sea,” in Scythians and Greeks: Cultural Interactions in Scythia, Athens and the Early Roman Empire (Sixth Century BC–First Century AD), ed. David Braund (Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 2005), pp. 64–79. 37 Karl F. W. Müller, ed., Fragmenta historicorum graecorum (FHG) (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1878–1885): Σ pho, 638; Gantz, Early Greek Myth, II, pp. 467–468. 38 Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (New York: Routledge, 2013); Lillis Julia-Kelto, Virgin Territory: Configuring Female Virginity in Early Christianity, doctoral dissertation (Durham, NC: Duke University, 2017), pp. 18–20. 39 Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess, pp. 100–102. 40 A. Cook, Zeus, pp. 123–125.

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Figure 14 – Persephone’s Rape, 160–180 CE, Pantelic marble sarcophagus, the Uffizi Galleries, Florence (I 05111) © Gallerie degli Uffizi.

of the dragon symbolizing the universal solar disc related to Zeus with symbols of healing and resurrection41 can also be traced to the winged cobra representing the two Egyptian ladies, Wadjet and Nehbet (the vulture). 42 As Ustinova shows, the conceptualization of fertility as an axis that connects the world’s upper and lower spheres, as represented by the image of the anguiped, 43 is also manifested by the combination of snakes and wings. This sign gains further potency when associated with the Roman Demeter/Ceres, who sometimes rides the double-winged dragon chariot, occasionally with Triptolemos, as demonstrated by the Sardonyx in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersberg, which depicts Germanicus and Agrippina as Triptolemos and Demeter riding the double-dragon chariot. 44 Demeter/Ceres is also shown riding the double-dragon chariot in depictions of the rape of Persephone on sarcophagi, such as the one in the Uffizi Galleries, Florance (fig. 14). The dragon chariot also reflects the importance of snakes in the sanctuary and ceremonial rituals in honor of Demeter and Kore. There is little need to stress the importance of the Eleusinian Mysteries in the Greek world. The annual festivals for the goddesses Demeter and her daughter Kore/ Persephone were the highlight of the year in Ithaca and beyond; initiation into their mystery cult was eagerly anticipated, and any violation of its rules elicited great fear. The scholium on Lucian, perhaps inspired by Didymus in the first century BCE, documented the Thesmophoria festival, revealing that piglets, alongside honey cakes in the shape of dragons or phalluses, were fed to drakontes (live snakes) that inhabited the underground chamber (megera) of a temple of Demeter and Kore. 41 A. Cook, Zeus, pp. 197–210. 42 Troy, Patterns of Queenship, pp. 53–61. 43 Ustinova, “Snake-Limbed and Tendril-Limbed Goddesses.” 44 “Triptolemos,” in LIMC, XIII/2, fig. 39.

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Women had to abstain from sex (kathareusai, or inter alia) for three days prior to feeding the serpents. The remnants of the food were retrieved by these women and then sacrificed, together with seeds, in order to ensure a good agricultural year. This ceremony further strengthens the connection between Demeter and Kore/Persephone and dragons, as well as that between dragons and seeds, fertility, and agriculture.45 The sacred relationship between a woman and a dragon in Greco-Roman culture is attended to by Ogden in his survey of “dragon mistresses,”46 which presents a number of rituals and events in which a prophetic snake was groomed, served, and offered sacrifices by women characterized by various degrees of chastity. The oikouros ophis is the holy serpent that guarded the Parthenon and was tended to by the virgin priestess of Athena. The prophetic snakes in the sanctuary of Apollo in Epirus, considered to be Python’s sons, were similarly tended to by virgin priestesses. 47 The old priestess of Eileithyia was the only person authorized to enter the sanctuary of the dragon Sosipolis. Pailler summarizes the power of the Vestal Virgins as “priestesses of the serpent,” and outlines the Roman and Etruscan

45 “To Demeter,” in The Homeric Hymns, trans. Jules Cashford, intro. and notes. Nicholas Richardson (London and New York: Penguin Books, 2003). Edwin O. James, The Tree of Life: An Archaeological Study (Leiden: Brill, 1966), pp. 124–128, 233; James G. Frazer, The Golden Bough (New York: Macmillan, 1947), p. 389; Prytz Johansen, “The Thesmophoria as a Women’s Festival,” Temenos, 11 (January 1975), pp. 78–87; Walter Burkert, Griechische religion: Der archaischen und klassischen Epoche (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1977), pp. 365–370; Walter Burkert, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), pp. 138–140; Allaire C. Brumfield, The Attic Festivals of Demeter and Their Relation to the Agricultural Year (New York: Arno Press, 1981); Froma I. Zeitlin, “Cultic Models of the Female: Rites of Dionysus and Demeter,” Arethusa, 15 (1982), pp. 129–157; Erika Simon, Festivals of Attica: An Archaeological Commentary (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), pp. 18–22; Robert C. T. Parker, Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 81–83; Walter Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), pp. 21–27; Kevin Clinton, “Sacrifice at the Eleusinian Mysteries,” in Early Greek Cult Practice: Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 26–29 June, 1986, eds. Robin Hägg, Nanno Marinatos, and Gullog C. Nordquist (Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Athen, 1988), pp. 69–80, 71–72; Henk S. Versnel, Ter Unus; Isis, Dionysos, Hermes; Three Studies in Henotheism (Leiden: Brill, 1990), pp. 234–260; Lars Albinus, The House of Hades: Studies in Ancient Greek Eschatology (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2000); Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, “Festivals and Mysteries: Aspects of the Eleusinian Cult,” in Greek Mysteries: The Archaeology and Ritual of Ancient Greek Secret Cults, ed. Michael B. Cosmopoulos (London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 41–65; Joan B. Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 105; Hugh Bowden, Classical Athens and the Delphic Oracle: Divination and Democracy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 26–48; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 204–205; Michael Patterson, Women at the Thesmophoria (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005); Hugh Bowden, Mystery Cults of the Ancient World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), pp. 26–48. 46 Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 192–214. 47 Herodotus informs us that in its hour of extreme distress, the entire city gathered in this temple for protection; see Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Robin Waterfield, intro. and notes. Carolyn Dewald (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008): 8.41.

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roots for the connection between virgins and dragons. 48 In some cases, women were sworn to chastity, but this commitment pertained only to rituals in which women had to avoid intercourse (kathareusai or inter alia) for three days before the ceremony, such as during the Greek Thesmophoria festival. The amount of evidence concerning the sacred nature of the interaction between the virgin and the dragon, and its relation to holy events involving oracular knowledge, protection, and prosperity, is overwhelming. 49 Since snakes were understood to be capable of moving between spheres, they could predict or ensure a good year for agriculture, and this common ceremonial tradition continued into the Roman period.50 Snake cults associated with fertility and agriculture were highly common throughout the Mediterranean, underscoring the role of the biblical myth of Eden as a reaction against them, as will be further elaborated upon in later chapters.51 The sole visual evidence of the Thesmophoria festival is an Attic lekythos from the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, dated to 450–425 BCE. This image depicts a woman offering a piglet and a plate to a form resembling stalks of wheat, which could also be interpreted as snakes, reinforcing the association between snakes and vegetation. The coupling of dragons with Great Mothers in creation myths is a recurrent theme, similarly evident in a Greek Pelasgian creation myth that describes Eurynome harnessing the winds to create Ophion, which mate with her and incubate the egg containing the world created from this union. The teeth of the Ophion dragon are then planted in the earth (Gaia), from which the Pelasgians grow. Robert Graves demonstrates how this myth also lies at the root of the Homeric myth of creation.52 Although Graves’s perspective is controversial, his reconstruction of the Pelasgian myth of creation is consistent with many other myths of creation around the Mediterranean and beyond. The Pelasgian creation myth is supported by a fragment by Eusebius, which quotes Phino of Byblos’s myth of Kronos combating a dragon 48 Jean-Marie Pailler, “La vierge et le serpent de la trivalence à l’ambiguїté,” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome antiquité, 109 (1997), pp. 513–575, particularly pp. 517–575. Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 347–350. 49 Lucian, “Dialogues of the Courtesans,” in Lucian, trans. Austin Morris Harmon, K. Kilburn, and M. D. MacLeod (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1913–1967): 2.1; Pausanias, Description of Greece: 20.2–6; Aelian, On the Characteristics of Animals, trans. Alwyn F. Scholfield (London: W. Heinemann, 1958–1959): 11.2. Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 203–204. 50 Jocelyn M. C. Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art (London: Thames and Hudson, 1973), pp. 224–234. 51 Herodotus, The Histories: 6.60; Lucian of Samosata, “Dialogues of the Courtesans,” in Lucian: 2. On snake cults, see Karen R. Joines, “The Serpent in the Old Testament,” ThD dissertation (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, 1967), pp. 68–145; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 347–382. 52 Robert Graves, The Greek Myths (London: Cassell, 1955), I, pp. 27–31. For criticism of Graves, see Herbert Jennings Rose, “Review: The Greek Myths by Robert Graves,” Classical Review, 5.2 (1955), pp. 208–209; Kevin Herbert, “Review: The Greek Myths by Robert Graves,” Classical Journal, 51.4 (1956), pp. 191–192; Jay Macpherson, “Review: The Greek Myths by Robert Graves,” Phoenix, 12.1 (1958), pp. 15–25.

The Cave and the Womb: The My th of Cadmus and the My th of Apollo and Py thon 

god from a previous generation named Ophioneus.53 Forsyth demonstrated the connection of this story to Hittite and Canaanite myths.54 Moreover, Seneca describes the Spartans as Ophion’s sons, and Lykophron calls them “the people of Ogygos,” which is equivalent to Okeanor in the Pelasgina pronunciation, refers to Ophion.55 In light of this evidence, it is not surprising to encounter other creation myths, such as Cadmos’ creation of Thebes. Cadmos’ creation myth contains the motif of a Great Mother Goddess as a dragon that laid the foundations for a city, alongside a cow who leads the human hero to the location where the city will be born. In the Cadmos myth, the hero has to fight the dragon in order to establish a new order and give rise to a new generation. This myth follows a long line of creation myths, such as the famous combat between Zeus and Typhon, which involve a god or a hero battling a dragon with the aim of establishing a new order and a new generation.56 Another creation myth similar to the Cadmos myth is that of Apollo fighting Python, which was meant to provide an etiological explanation for the creation of Apollo’s Temple at Delphi. “The previous owner” myth contends that Delphi previously had a temple dedicated to Ge/Gaia or Themis, both of which were considered Great Mother goddesses, and that Apollo, as a male god, occupied the premises.57 Python is a guardian dragon of Gaia and embodies her abilities 53 Eusebius of Caesarea, Preparation for the Gospel, trans. Edwin Hamilton Gifford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903): 1.10.50. Graves, The Greek Myths, I, pp. 30–31. 54 Forsyth, The Old Enemy, p. 70. 55 Seneca, Hercules Furens: A Critical Text with Introduction and Commentary, comm. and intro. John G. Fitch (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987): 75.268; Lycophron, “On Hektor’s Bones,” in Alexandra, trans. comm. and intro. Simon Hornblower (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015): 1206. Fontenrose, Python, p. 311. 56 Forsyth’s book thoroughly debates the issue of the combat myth as a city-establishment myth, which is connected to the topos of the king, but he does not mention the dragon’s connection to the Great Mother Goddess; see Forsyth, The Old Enemy. For more information about Zeus combating Typhon, see Calvert Watkins, How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 460–463; Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, pp. 19–38. 57 Pindar, The Odes of Pindar, Including the Principal Fragments, trans. and intro. John Sandys (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1937): Pythian, fr. 55 SM; Deborah J. Fryer, “‘Euripides’ ‘Iphigeneia among the Taurians’: Translation, Introductory Essay and Notes,” doctoral dissertation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1993): IT1234–1283, “On Themis”: IT1239–1258, “Oresteia”: IT163–165; Aeschylus, The Eumenides, trans. and comm. Hugh Lloyd-Jones, intro. Eric A. Havelock (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970): 9–11.1–11, particularly 1–8; Aristonoos, “Hymn,” in Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (FGrH), Felix Jacoby (Leiden: Brill, 1923): 1:17–24; Pausanias, Description of Greece: 10.5.5–6, 24.4; Ovid, Metamorphoses: 1.320–321; Lucan, The Civil War (Pharsalia), ed. and trans. James D. Duff (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 224–225.5.79–81; Plutarch, “De Pythiae oraculis,” in Pythici dialogi; De E apud Delphos; De Pythiae oraculi; De defectu oraculorum, ed. Wilhelm Sieveking, rev. Hans Gärtner (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1997): 402C–E, “De defectu oraculorum”: 414A–B; Plutarch, “Why the Oracles Cease to Give Answers,” in Plutarch’s Morals by Way of Abstract: Done from the Greek (London: J. Nicholson, Robert Knaplock, D. Midwinter, and Benj. Took, 1707): 293c; ibid., “Plutarch of Rivers and Mountains and Such Things as Are Found in Them”: 421c; Hyginus, Fabulae, ed. Peter K. Marshal (Munich: K. G. Saur, 2002): 140. Christiane

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and powers. Similar to Cadmos’ usage of the dragon’s teeth in order to create the population of Thebes, Apollo uses Python’s skin, teeth, bones, and venom to assist in the prophetic process.58 The current analysis argues that the cave of Delphi is synonymous with Python itself. In earlier documentation, the Delphic dragon is generally addressed as a female, later called Delphyne.59 Python, similar to Hathor, is thus the womb itself, with the cave representing a threshold to the land beyond. Hence, this study suggests that Python is a manifestation of Gaia, and is synonymous with the cave and the womb in Delphi. Thus, to return to the images representing the Cadmos myth, the female personification and the dragon of Ares (figs. 7, 10) can be understood to represent a primeval female deity synonymous with a sacred cave and a water spring, which are the foundation for the creation of Thebes. Palaephatus and Derkylos, both living in the fourth century BCE, contended that Drakōn was the previous king of Thebes, who was overthrown by Cadmos. Significantly, the Drakōn variation of the Cadmos myth relates even more closely to “the previous owner” myth of Delphi.60 The process of entering and exiting a cave, like entering and exiting the underworld, is symbolically depicted as being swallowed by a dragon and then emerging back out of it, as demonstrated in the previous chapter by the stories of Jason or Jonah/Jesus (figs. 2, 3). Entering the holy dragon’s cave is tantamount to death, while exiting it is associated with resurrection.61 The figure-eight shape of the dragon alludes to the metamorphosis myths of Cadmos and Harmonia, in which they are described as being intertwined in the form of a caduceus (fig. 1).62 As noted, in the fourth century BCE, Palaephatus described the Sphinx who tormented Thebes as actually being Cadmos’ first wife, the Amazon queen.63 Fontenrose identifies the erotic, feminine Sphinx as a messenger of Hades or the Erinys, who seduces her lovers and then consumes them.64 This myth recounts the hero’s initial encounter with a Sourvinou-Inwood, “Myth as History,” in Interpretations of Greek Mythology, ed. Jan N. Bremmer (London: Routledge, 1988), pp. 215–216; Gantz, Early Greek Myth, I, p. 88. 58 Ovid, Metamorphoses: 1.444; Nonnus, Dionysiaca: 9.547–542; Hyginus, Fabulae: 140; Herbert W. Parke and D. E. W. Wormell, The Delphic Oracle (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1956), pp. 20–21; Erwin Rohde, Psyche: The Cult of Souls and the Belief in Immortality among the Greeks (New York: Routledge, 2010), p. 97. 59 “To Apollo,” in The Homeric Hymns: 3.300–309, 3.349–73; Callimachus, Callimachus, ed. Rudolfus Pfeiffer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949–1953): F643. 60 Derkylos, in FGrH, Jacoby: 9.J; Palaephatus, “The Spartoi,” in On Unbelievable Tales: 3. Fontenrose, Python, p. 311. 61 Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, pp. 154–155. 62 The dragon body as the great round is a feature of the Great Mother goddess discussed by both A. Cook and Neumann as a symbol of faith and holiness and is considered as Oraboric in nature, see A. Cook, Zeus, I, pp. 197–299; Neumann, The Great Mother, pp. 211–239. 63 Palaephatus, “The Sphinx of Cadmeia,” in On Unbelievable Tales: 4. 64 Fontenrose, Python, pp. 308–310.

The Cave and the Womb: The My th of Cadmus and the My th of Apollo and Py thon 

dangerous female entity – an Amazon queen – followed by a second encounter with a woman suitable for marriage. Other sources of this myth relate that the Sphinx was sent as a punishment, mainly by Ares, for past actions. In the Palaephatus story, Harmonia was given as a second wife to Cadmos, while the Sphinx was dismissed, precipitating its jealousy and vengefulness. Taking a second younger wife was accepted but uncommon in some Greek societies. The best-known story of retribution by a vengeful wife is the Medea myth, which will be investigated in depth later on.65 As noted, Harmonia is the daughter of Aphrodite and Ares. The dragon is often presented as Ares’ son, and therefore as Harmonia’s half-brother. The daughter of two gods must also be a goddess herself, and is therefore unlikely to marry a mortal, and especially the one that had angered a god – her own father by killing his son. Harmonia is thus associated with yet another Great Mother goddess – Aphrodite, who is united with the god of war to create harmony, a balanced state between two extremes. Ironically, Harmonia, as the wife of Cadmos, does not find peace and balance in her life, and is eventually forced into exile. Nonnus informs us that the suffering of Cadmos is a result of Ares avenging the death of his dragon. Nonnus also mentions that at Harmonia’s wedding, Aphrodite gives her a necklace made by Hephaestus in the shape of an amphisbaena, a double-headed serpent, a detail recounted by the First Vatican Mythographer. The description of this object is similar to that of the caduceus of Hermes, Psychopompos (fig. 1), and is another indication of this couple’s relationship to the image of the caduceus.66 The caduceus rod is an ancient symbol that migrated to Greece early on, perhaps even accompanying Hermes, before the eighth century BCE. Hermes may have been an important deity in snake cults flourishing during that period. His other name is Argeiphontos – Argo Slayer (hence dragon slayer), perhaps explaining why the caduceus appears as one of Hermes’s consistent attributes.67 The Homeric Hymns’ describes the myth of Apollo and Python, in which, after slaying Python, Apollo gives his body to Hermes as a gift and the god uses it to form the caduceus.68 The 65 Hesiod, “Theogony,” in Hesiod, I: 326f.; Euripides, Phoenissae: 806–811, 1031; Apollodorus, The Library: 2.3.1, 3.5.8; Hyginus, Fabulae: 151.1. Fontenrose, Python, pp. 309, nn. 62–63. On sphinxes in art see Kiki Karoglou, Dangerous Beauty: Medusa in Classical Art: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018), pp. 28–34. 66 Nonnus, Dionysiaca: 4.416–420, 5.135–189; “First Vatican Mythographer,” in Mythographi Vaticani I et II, ed. Péter Kulcsár (Turnhout: Brepols, 1987): 2.49. Ogden, Drakōn, p. 53. 67 “Kerykeion,” in LIMC, V/8, pp. 728–730, fig. 495; Jacqueline Chittenden, “Diaktoros argeiphontes,” American Journal of Archaeology, 52.1 (January–March 1948), pp. 24–33; S. Davis, “Argeiphontes in Homer: The Dragon-Slayer,” Greece and Rome, 22.64 (February 1953), pp. 33–38, particularly p. 36. 68 “To Hermes,” in The Homeric Hymns: 498.

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image of the two snakes intertwined around a pillar signifies the circle of life and nature’s seasons, the midway point between life and death, and the path of the soul.69 It is also proof of the importance of snakes as deities that manifested this cycle and were able to travel between the two worlds. This association explains the snake’s perception as a trickster, as well as the idea that communicating with a snake should sometimes require the mediation of a woman, who is similarly subordinated to the cycles of life due to her ability to give birth and her monthly cycle of menstruation. Thus, the relationship between women and dragons springs from their assimilation.70 Ovid’s description of Harmonia and Cadmos’ metamorphosis into intertwined snakes71 can be related to the Roman views of snakes as vessels for the souls of the dead, whose body was viewed as the gate between the world of the living and the dead.72 This symbolic aspect resonates in the writing of Ovid, who attends to the connection of dragons not only to Cadmos, but to many of his offspring, including Perseus, who is discussed later.73 Another point is that Cadmos – a dragon slayer who becomes a dragon – is an example of the numerous occasions on which dragon slayers become dragons themselves, or are assisted by dragons. Zeus, the slayer of Typhon, transforms himself into a dragon on more than one occasion; Athena is assisted by dragons several times; and Apollo sends water dragons to kill Laocoön and his sons.74 In conclusion, the discussion of the Cadmos myth points to the rich web of symbolic associations between dragons and women, particularly Great Mother goddesses, which are evident in various ancient civilizations including Greece and Rome. As argued in this chapter, the motif of the woman and the dragon is a holy symbol related to the womb-cave, earth, and underworld, as well as to dominion 69 Doro Levi, “Aion,” Hesperia: Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 13.4 (October– December 1944), pp. 269–314; Howard M. Jackson, “The Meaning and Function of the Leontocephaline in Roman Mithraism,” Numen, 32.1 (July 1985), pp. 17–45; Roger Beck, Planetary Gods and Planetary Orders in the Mysteries of Mithras (Leiden: Brill, 1988), pp. 54–57; Sharon Khalifa-Gueta, “The Leontocephaline from the Villa Albani: Material Documentation for Religious Entanglement,” Humans, 2 (2022), pp. 31–49. 70 Although Claude Lévi-Strauss was largely responsible for identifying the centrality of patriarchal society’s reaction to the menstrual cycle, which is directly connected to the moon, an elaborate study of this subject was conducted by Chris Knight in his investigation of the Aboriginal Wawilak Sisters myth. His conclusions about the relationship between women and dragons resembles mine; see Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Origin of Table Manners: Introduction to a Science of Mythology (London: Cape, 1978), pp. 221–222; Chris Knight, “Lévi-Strauss and the Dragon: Mythologiques Reconsidered in the Light of an Australian Aboriginal Myth,” Man: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 18.1 (March 1983), pp. 21–50. 71 Ovid, Metamorphoses: 4:575–603. 72 Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art, pp. 224–234. 73 Ovid, Metamorphoses: 4:604–613. 74 Charles Daremberg and Edmond Saglio, eds., Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines (Paris: Hachette, 1877–1904); Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 215–217.

The Cave and the Womb: The My th of Cadmus and the My th of Apollo and Py thon 

over fertility and agriculture. However, the affiliation between women and the Great Mother goddess, due to their exclusive power to generate life, entered into a troubling conflict with patriarchal religious and cultural conceptions of masculine domination in the realm of the gods. The masculine occupation of “virgin” territory is thus transformed into a dragon-slayer myth, and the land, symbolized by a goddess or other symbols of fertility, becomes the enemy. The Cassel Painter’s bell-krater painting (fig. 8) brilliantly highlights this problematic dynamic, along with the holy union of a dragon and a female figure. In order to further explore the holiness of the union between women and dragons, I will now turn to the myth of Apollo and Python.

Apollo and Python and/or Delphyne – The Oracle and the Dragon The myth of Apollo combating Python and/or Delphyne is related to the debate about whether the dragon fight in the Cadmos myth pertains to the establishment of a city, as well as to the connection between the dragon and Great Mother topos. These themes are included in the very name Delphis, meaning “womb.”75 Apollo’s Temple in Delphi was indisputably the most important and central locus sanctus of the Greco-Roman world, as noted by Ustinova in her chapter on oracular caves.76 Within it was the grotto, where the Pythia oracle prophesied. That cave was considered the navel of the world,77 and contained several sacred objects. The aim of this subchapter is to further relate the mythical male or female dragon to the practice and ritual of the Pythia, who was named after the dragon and represented its role in the prophetic act. As Lucian relates, there existed a close bond between the dragon and a female virgin: “The virgin who acted the prophetess at Delphi was the symbol of the virgin in the skies; and a dragon utters his voice from under the tripod.”78 It sometimes seems a cruel irony that there are so many surviving Pythian songs, but so few surviving plays dedicated to the mythical combat between Apollo and 75 Mircea Eliade, The Forge and the Crucible, trans. Stephen Corrin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 21; Jean Richer, Sacred Geography of the Ancient Greeks: Astrological Symbolism in Art, Architecture, and Landscape, trans. Christine Rhone (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), p. 1; Michael Scott, Delphi: A History of the Center of the Ancient World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), p. 36. 76 Ustinova, Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind, pp. 55–109, 121–153. 77 Pindar, The Odes of Pindar: frag. 54; Plutarch, Plutarch’s Morals: 409E–410A; Strabo, The Geography of Strabo, trans. Duane W. Roller (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014): 9.3.6. 78 Lucian of Samosata, “Of Astrology,” in The Dialogues of Lucian, ed. notes. and intro. Norman Mosley Penzer, trans. William Tooke (London: Privately printed for the Navarre Society, 1930): 23; Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, p. 41.

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Python, whose narrative was central to the Pythian festival. There were at least two monumental sculptural groups devoted to this subject, one in the center of Athens and the other in Delphi, yet only five ancient sources, a handful of coins, and three vase paintings portraying this most important of Greco-Roman myths remain in existence today.79 The myth has two variations. The first is documented in the Homeric hymn to Apollo, in which the fully mature god fights and slays the drakaina (a female dragon) that terrorizes Delphi, saving the local people.80 The second variation portrays Apollo as an infant and claims that the battle against the dragon was revenge for the suffering inflicted on his mother, Leto, by Python, who acted as an emissary of Hera. In the Homeric hymn, the female dragon is not named, but her putrefied body is described as emitting a horrific smell; it is for this reason that the location was named “Pythian” – literally, “noxious smell.” Callimachus later names the female dragon Delphyne, which is tantamount to calling the dragon “womb.”81 An important element of the variation appearing in the Homeric hymn is the story of Typhon. The hymn recounts that Hera was envious of Zeus’s ability to impregnate himself and to give birth to Athena. Hera then tried to procreate on her own, creating the dragon Typhon. When she saw Typhon, she approached a female dragon, asking her to act as a foster mother to the child-monster. Fontenrose elaborates the shared roots of the Python and Typhon myths, claiming that the stories were once one but were later divided – hence the equivalence between the myth of the combat between Zeus and Typhon and that of the combat between Apollo and Python. Watkins corroborates this argument, proving that the linguistic root of both names is the Vedic Ahi-Budhnyà, which means “serpent of the deep.”82 Another issue in the Homeric hymn on which both these scholars agree is that Apollo was led to Delphi by the nymph Telphousa, who did not want him to build his oracle at her seaside abode. Both Fontenrose and Watkins identify this nymph as a dragon or anguiped deity connected to water. After Apollo vanquishes Python, he understands that Telphousa intended to send him to his death, and so he returns to kill and bury her under a pile of rocks. The image arising from the Telphousa myth is identical to that seen in the enigmatic Cadmos bell-krater painting in the 79 Strabo, “Polux Onomasticon,” in The Geography: 4.78–79, 4.84, alludes to Pindar, Pythian. On the Septerion festival and Python games, see John of Antioch, in FHG, Müller: 4.539.F1. Fontenrose, Python, pp. 16, 453–461; Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, pp. 42–43. 80 “To Apollo,” in The Homeric Hymns: 3.300–309. Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, pp. 39–41. See note 131. 81 Callimachus, Callimachus: F643. 82 “To Apollo,” in The Homeric Hymns: 3.349–373. Fontenrose, Python, pp. 70–93; Watkins, How to Kill a Dragon, pp. 460–463.

The Cave and the Womb: The My th of Cadmus and the My th of Apollo and Py thon 

Metropolitan Museum (fig. 8). The personification of the spring is a feminine, nymph-like deity, which also manifests as a dragon and is sometimes presented as if existing within a pile of rocks.83 The second variation on this myth involves Leto, Apollo’s mother. Hera sends Python (a male dragon) to pursue Leto after she learns that Leto was made pregnant by Zeus. Leto is miserable, because she cannot find shelter and a place to rest and give birth. After Leto eventually finds a safe haven and gives birth, the infant Apollo comes back to exact his revenge on Python. The literary variation of this myth shows up rather late, having been written by Hyginus in the third century CE. Euripides hints at this version when he describes Leto bringing the infant Apollo to shoot arrows at Python, but he does not mention Python’s pursuit of Leto.84 Although fragmentary and almost absent from literature, this variation has been given artistic representation on a white-ground lekythos from 470–460 BCE (figs. 15a, and b), now in the National Library of France, Paris. In this image, the infant Apollo is shown aiming its arrow toward Python, who is assimilated to the mountain. An Apulian amphora dated to the fourth century BCE (now lost), which portrayed Leto running from Python,85 is interesting because of the infant Apollo’s gesture, which seems to indicate that he is trying to embrace Python. A fragmented Etruscan sculptural group from the sixth century BCE, as well as a group of monumental bronze statues at Delphi described by Klearchos of Soloi, presumably portrayed the same iconography.86 A tetradrachm coin (fig. 16) references the first variation of the myth, depicting Apollo and Python on either side of a tripod.87 This coin and others of its kind were presumably copied from a monumental sculptural group, now lost, that was created by Pythagoras of Rhegion. Ogden identifies a representation of the Lamia monster on a black-figured lekythos with a white ground dated to 475–450 BCE, now in the

83 “To Apollo,” in The Homeric Hymns: 3.242–76, 3.375–87. Fontenrose, Python, pp. 366–374; Watkins, How to Kill a Dragon, p. 461. 84 Fryer, “‘Euripides’ ‘Iphigeneia among the Tauroi’”: IT1239–1258; Hyginus, Fabulae: 140. Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, p. 41. 85 William Hamilton and Johann H. W. Tischbein, Collection of Engravings from Ancient Vases (Naples: Tischbein, 1791–1795), III, fig. 4. 86 Klearchos of Soloi, Beiträge zu den Fragmenten des Klearchos von Soloi, ed. and with comm. Stavros Tsitsiridis (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013): 46.2.318m. Fontenrose, Python, pp. 17–18; Gantz, Early Greek Myth, I, pp. 88–89. 87 Wilhelm H. Roscher, ed., Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie (Hildesheim: Olms, 1965–1977), pp. 3406–3411; L. G. Kahil, “Apollon et Python,” in Mélanges offerts à Kazimierz Michalowski, ed. Maria Ludwika Bernhard (Warszawa: Panstwowe Wydawn. Naukowe, 1966), pp. 481–490, particularly pp. 482–483.

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Figure 15a – Infant Apollo Shoots Arrows at Python, 470–460 BCE, black-figure lekythos with white ground, Cabinet of Medals, National Library of France, Paris © BNF.

The Woman and the Dr agon in Premodern Art

The Cave and the Womb: The My th of Cadmus and the My th of Apollo and Py thon 

Figure 15b – Infant Apollo Shoots Arrows at Python, 470–460 BCE, black-figure lekythos with white ground, Cabinet of Medals, National Library of France, Paris © BNF.

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Figure 16 – Apollo Combating Python and the Delphic Tripod, 425–350 BCE, Greek tetradrachm silver stater from Croton, Münzkabinett der Staatlichen Museen, Berlin (No. 18214781) © Münzkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 18214781. Aufnahme durch B. Weisser.

Musée du Louvre.88 This scene, however, depicts a tripod, leaving little doubt that it portrays Apollo seated on the mountain above it. The anguiped figure across from him, whose form suggests that she is female, is most likely Delphyne.89 Over time, Python becomes the attribute of Apollo, as in the marble statue of Apollo, a copy of a bronze statue displayed in the Athens Agora in the fourth century BCE, and now at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden. This iconography includes various representations of Python, ranging from a very large snake to a tiny lizard. This creation myth, which is thematically close to that of Cadmos, contains symbols that are of importance for this study, and which pertain to two complex issues: on the one hand, there is vast literary documentation showing that the Delphic Oracle was previously the dominion of a Great Mother goddess – Ge/Gaia, Themis, Hecate, or even of Dionysus, all of whom had Python as their protective

88 On Lamia, see Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, pp. 97–108; Theocritus, “Idyll,” in Moschus; Bion, ed. and trans. Neil Hopkinson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 15.40; Aristides, “Panathenaic Oration,” in Orations, ed. and trans. Michael B. Trapp (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017): 1.41; Horace, “The Art of Poetry,” in Satires; Epistles; The Art of Poetry, trans. Rushton H. Fairclough (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 340. Sarah Iles Johnston, “Corinthian Medea and the Cult of Hera Akraia,” in Medea: Essays on Medea in Myth, Literature, Philosophy, and Art, eds. James J. Clauss and Sarah Iles Johnston, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 57–59; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 86–92. 89 Fontenrose, Python, p. 17; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 86–92.

The Cave and the Womb: The My th of Cadmus and the My th of Apollo and Py thon 

deity or as the oracle itself.90 On the other hand, the presence of Python in the grotto of the Pythia – in the flesh or conceptually – and the spiritual interaction between the Pythia and the dragon – are crucial. An analysis of these themes will show Python to be symbolically equivalent to the cave itself, therefore proving that the dragon in the Apollo and Python/Delphyne myth is a symbol of oracular caves in particular, and of the womb of the earth in general. This definition does not aim to address all oracular caves, but to suggest that when the motif of a dragon and a mountain is presented, the context is sacred and oracular. Contrary to the meager evidence concerning the combat myth, “the previous owner” myth is attested to by a broad array of literary sources ranging from Aeschylus, Pindar, and Euripides to Pausanias, Ovid, Lucan, and of course Plutarch, who served as a priest at the Delphi Temple. Clement of Alexandria describes Python as an oracular servant to Gaia, who was worshipped at Delphi, or as Gaia’s temple guardian, and elaborates on the forceful overtaking of the temple by Apollo.91 He also mentions: “A solemn assembly of Greeks, held in honor of a dead serpent, was gathering at Pytho,” which also relates the previous owners to Python.92 Aeschylus wrote a more subtle story that describes the temple as an inheritance from Gaia to Themis, Phoebe, and then to Phoebe’s grandson, Apollo.93 In other variations, the nymphs Daphna or Themis were earlier oracles.94 “The previous owner” myth offers a more explicit interpretation of the combat myth and its iconography. The silver stater (fig. 16), which portrays Apollo on one side of a tripod, shooting an arrow at Python on the other side, is particularly interesting in this context. In fact, “the previous owner” myth suggests Apollo was not fighting a random dragon, but rather the son and successor-in-force of Gaia, the Great Mother of Greek mythology. Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood’s article “Myth as History: The Previous Owners of the Delphic Oracle” outlines the reasons that, in her opinion, “the previous owner” myth has no historical basis.95 By contrast, the 90 See note 57. 91 Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, trans. George W. Butterworth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999): 1.1, 2.34. 92 Ibid.: 1.1. 93 Aeschylus, The Eumenides: 9–11.1–11, particularly 1–8. 94 Pindar, The Odes of Pindar: Pythian, fr. 55 SM; Fryer, “‘Euripides’ ‘Iphigeneia among the Tauroi’”: IT1234–1283, “On Themis”: IT1239–1258, “Oresteia”: IT163–165; Aristonoos, “Hymn,” in FGrH, Jacoby: 1:17–24; Pausanias, Description of Greece: 10.5.5–6, 24.4; Ovid, Metamorphoses: 1.320–321; Lucan, The Civil War: 224–225.5.79–81; Plutarch, “De Pythiae oraculis”, in Pythici dialogi: 402C–E, “De defectu oraculorum”: 414A–B; Plutarch, “Why the Oracles Cease to Give Answers,” in Plutarch’s Morals: 293c; ibid., “Plutarch of Rivers and Mountains and Such Things as Are Found in Them”: 421c; Hyginus, Fabulae: 140. SourvinouInwood, “Myth as History,” in Interpretations of Greek Mythology, Bremmer, pp. 215–216; Gantz, Early Greek Myth, I, p. 88. 95 Sourvinou-Inwood, “Myth as History,” in Interpretations of Greek Mythology, Bremmer.

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current study accords with a handful of scholars such as Herbert W. Parke, D. E. W. Wormell, Hubert Gallet de Santerre, Marie Delcourt, and Fontenrose, among others, who accept the premise that located near Apollo’s temple was one dedicated to a Great Mother goddess. This assumption is based on the archaeological excavation of a nearby temple that was probably dedicated to Gaia, and an Archaic sculpture that was found at the compound.96 According to Manuela Giordano, Gaia is the matrixial conceptualized in early Greek thought as the origin of truth, and hence of prophesy.97 In this spirit, the following discussion aims to establish a connection between Gaia and Python (or Delphyne), pointing to the dragon as the perceived source of truth and of prophetic abilities. Furthermore, whereas scholars such as Fontenrose have attempted to explain the absence of a cave in excavations of Apollo’s Temple in Delphi, Ustinova’s combination of literary and archaeological evidence leads to the conclusion that there was indeed a cave there, but that it was destroyed by an earthquake in 373 BCE. This event seems to have led the local authorities to create a manmade grotto to replace the natural cave.98 In any case, this book’s approach is more conceptual, focusing on the myth of Delphi and its cave. It assumes that “the previous owner” myth is closely connected to the myth of combat against a dragon, locating the 96 Robert R. Demangel and G. Daux, Les temples de tuf; Les deux trésors (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1923), I: of Le sanctuaire d’Athéna Pronaia: Premier fascicule (texte), pp. 5–36; Marie Delcourt, L’oracle de Delphes (Paris: Payot, 1955), pp. 28–32; Parke and Wormell, The Delphic Oracle, pp. 6–13; Hubert Gallet de Santerre, Délos primitive et archaïque (Paris: De Boccard, 1958), pp. 150–151; Lucien Lerat, “Fouilles à Delphes, à l’est du grand sanctuaire (1950–1957),” Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, 85.1 (1961), pp. 316–366; Georges Roux, Delphes: Son oracle et ses dieux (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1976), pp. 19–23; Joseph Fontenrose, The Delphic Oracle: Its Responses and Operations, with a Catalogue of Responses (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 1–4; Claude Rolley, “Les grands sanctuaires panhellèniques,” in The Greek Renaissance of the Eighth Century BC: Tradition and Innovation; Proceedings of the Second International Symposium at the Swedish Institute in Athens, 1–5 June, 1981, ed. Robin Hägg (Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Athen, 1983), pp. 109–114, particularly p. 113; Julia Kindt, “Delphic Oracle Stories and the Beginning of Historiography: Herodotus’ Croesus Logos,” Classical Philology, 101.1 (January 2006), pp. 34–51; Sourvinou-Inwood, “Myth as History,” in Interpretations of Greek Mythology, Bremmer. Both residues are presented by Sourvinou-Inwood and are too lightly dismissed by her; see ibid., pp. 217–219. Furthermore, the first layer of the Delphic temple of Apollo looked very much like a Mycenaean tomb. Although Sourvinou-Inwood refuted that the previous deity was Mycenaean, she herself notes that almost the entire Mycenaean pantheon was comprised of female deities. Based on this argument, Georges Roux, Fontenrose, and others claim that the Mycenaean Great Mother goddess was recast as Gaia in Greek culture. 97 Roux, Delphes, p. 19; Stella Georgoudi, “Les porte-parole des dieux. Réflexions sur le personnel des oracles grecs,” in Sibille e linguaggi oracolari: mito storia tradizione: atti del convegno Macerata-Norcia, eds. Ileana Chirassi Colombo, and Tullio Seppilli (Pisa: Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali, 1998), pp. 314–365; Manuela Giordano, “From Gaia to the Pythia: Prophecy Suits Women,” Journal of Ancient Judaism, 6.3 (2015), pp. 382–396. 98 Parke and Wormell, The Delphic Oracle, pp. 27–28; Ustinova, Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind, pp. 123–146.

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roots of the Delphic oracle in an earlier era and relating it to a schema of holiness. In order to further elucidate this argument, I will now turn to discuss the second theme pertaining to the presence of Python inside the Pythia’s cave, and provide a detailed analysis of the cave’s contents. To begin with, the Pythia had to be a young female virgin. Joan B. Connelly rightly concluded that masculine gods were usually served by male priests, whereas female goddesses were served by priestesses. Instances of women who performed an essential role in the sanctuary of a male god were unusual, yet not non-existent.99 The Pythia sat on a tripod – a high, three-legged chair – as depicted in the only surviving image of her in an Attic kylix by the Kodros Painter in the Berlin State Museum, dated to 440–430 BCE. Parke and Wormell contend that the tripod had three iron legs and a bowl that was originally intended to hold a sacrifice or incense over a fire.100 Later representations, however, depict, both the Pythia and Apollo as seated inside the bowl. Apollo is presented as seated on a tripod adorned with an image of a serpent in a marble relief of Xenokrateia and Her Child dated to 410 BCE, which was part of the Sanctuary of Echelidai at New Phaleron, and is now at the Athens National Museum. The visual connection between the tripod and Python is echoed in Nonnus’ Dionydiaca, in which he describes Python as being coiled around the tripod and pulling the Pythia’s hair. Another tradition proposes that the tripod was made of the bones and teeth of Python and wrapped in its skin; it was also said that Python himself hid in the tripod.101 An object of the highest importance that is documented as belonging in the cave is the omphalos, which was perceived as the navel of the earth and the umbilical center of creation. This object was associated with Zeus, and was believed to be the stone his mother Rhea gave to his father Kronus to eat in his place. It was also believed to be the tombstone of Dionysus. The fresco from the House of the Vettii in Pompeii (fig. 17) depicts Python, probably dead, as coiled around the omphalos. This image resembles Varro’s description of Python coiled around the omphalos, which also served as Python’s tomb. Here, Python is related not only to Apollo, but also to the Delphic Oracle. Fontenrose, following Leicester B. Holland, compares sources that proclaim the omphalos to be the tomb of Python to ones that consider it to be that of Dionysus (who is dead for nine months of the year and rules the temple in the three winter months). Pointing to various connections between 99 Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess, pp. 2, 44. 100 Parke and Wormell, The Delphic Oracle, pp. 24–26. 101 Hyginus, Fabulae: 140–145; Nonnus, Dionysiaca: 9:547–552; Servius, “Commentary on the Aeneid of Virgil,” in Servii Grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii carmina commentarii, ed. Georg Thilo and Hermann Hagen (Hildesheim: Olms, 1961): 3.92, 260, 360.

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Figure 17 – Python Encircles the Delphic Omphalos (detail), 62–68 CE, early fourth-style fresco from the east wall in the Lover’s Room, House of the Vettii, Pompeii © Art.Resource.

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Python and Dionysus, Fontenrose concludes that they are one and the same in the Delphic context.102 The cave also contained a laurel tree alluding to the first Delphic oracle, identified as Daphne (Laura in Latin) by Pausanias. This identification indicates the connection of the Delphic oracle with the myth of Daphne and Apollo, and forges an association between the oracle’s prophetic abilities and the nymphs. The sacred tree is also part of the holy triad including the cave, the spring and the tree, which are all associated with dragons.103 The oracular cave at Delphi, described and discussed at length in antiquity, contained a stream of water that was sometimes used for purification rituals. The stream seems to have sprung from deeper within the earth, and fumes arose from it. Ustinova’s claim that an artificial chamber was constructed after the earthquake in 373 BCE is based upon archaeological excavations, which have exposed a sophisticated system that brought water to the far end of the temple for additional purification rituals. The original cave contained a spring of water, a common feature of oracular caves, and as described earlier, was associated with dragons.104 The most intriguing feature of the Delphi cave was the fumes rising from beneath the tripod, which were presumed to transmit the oracles to the Pythia. Although Hellenistic and Roman sources describe the fumes as having a pleasant smell, based on the name Python, as originally described in the Homeric hymn, the pythesthai stench may have been thought to be generated by the dragon’s rotting corpse, and may have been unpleasant. The fumes were considered the source of inspiration for the oracular act, which caused the Pythia to enter a kind of shamanic ecstasy; her body twisted, and she mumbled inarticulate words that a male priest of Apollo (Hosioi) would translate as prophesy to the inquirer. The fumes are assumed to have been toxic, since the young virgins constantly died and were eventually replaced by old women.105 102 Marcus Terentius Varro, On the Latin Language, trans. Roland G. Kent (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014): 7.17; Hesychios, Lexicon, rev. and amended. Kurt Latte (Copenhagen: E. Munksgaard, 1953–1966): 54.T1134. Leicester B. Holland, “The Mantic Mechanism at Delphi,” American Journal of Archaeology, 37.2 (1933), pp. 201–214, particularly pp. 201–207; Parke and Wormell, The Delphic Oracle, p. 8; Roux, Delphes, pp. 121–145; Fontenrose, Python, pp. 374–377. 103 Pausanias, Description of Greece: 10.5.5. Parke and Wormell, The Delphic Oracle, p. 26. On the topos of the tree of life, see E. O. James, The Tree of Life; Roger Cook, The Tree of Life: Symbol of the Centre (London: Thames and Hudson, 1974). 104 Parke and Wormell, The Delphic Oracle, pp. 27–28; Ustinova, Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind, pp. 123–146. 105 On the fumes of the Delphic oracular cave, see Aristotle, Demetrius and Longinus, Aristotle’s Poetics; Demetrius: On Style; Longinus’ On the Sublime, intro. John Warrington (London: Dent, 1963); ibid., (Pseudo) Longinus, “On the Sublime,” in Demetrius: 1398b33(13.2); (Pseudo) Aristotle, “On the Cosmos,” in Cosmic

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These objects and their symbolic meanings lead to the conclusion that the Delphic womb – that is, the oracular cave considered to be the center of creation must have originated in the cult of a Great Mother goddess that preexisted Apollo. When one entered the cave with the holy spring, one would literally enter the earth (Gaia), which explains the need for a female priestess in a male god’s temple.106 The wet and humid environment of this cave symbolized female elements, and even the laurel tree was a reminder of the oracular cave’s previous female owner. The long cave with the spring of water and the fumes emitting from the ground thus reinforced the association between the cave, the serpent, and the Great Mother.107 Within the cave itself, the Pythia was symbolically located inside Python, and was granted oracles by the grace of Python, even if dead. Python was Gaia’s delegate, and the Pythia functioned as Gaia’s priestess. As noted, she also had to be a virgin, for as is suggested here, only female virgins were believed to be capable of receiving the dragon’s sacred communications.108 Furthermore, the etymological and phonological relations between the name Python, the description of the smell as a pythesthai (stink), the location Pytho, and the prophet, Pythia (Πῡθίᾱ), forge a connection between them. The association of the toxic fumes with the revelation of knowledge from the underworld was due to the fact that snake venom was believed to have been concocted using knowledge of other spheres, and because this animal could move between spheres and possessed sacred knowledge and the ability to kill or heal.109 If the dragon’s mouth was the Order and Divine Power, ed. and trans. Mohr Siebeck (Tübingen: MohrGmbH and Co. K. G., 2014): 395b28–29; Iamblichos of Chalcis, On the Mysteries: De mysteriis Aegyptiorum; Together with Two Extracts from Lost Works of Proclus: On the Sacred Art and On the Signs of Divine Possession, ed. Stephen Ronan, trans. Thomas Taylor and Alexander Wilde (Hastings, UK: Chthonios Books, 1989): 3.11; Strabo, The Geography: 9.3.5, 13.2; Plutarch, “Why the Oracles Cease to Give Answers,” in The Morals: 432C–438D, “The Obsolescence of Oracles,” in The Morals: 414B, 417F–418C; Pliny the Elder, Natural History, trans. Harris Rackham, William Henry Samuel Jones, and D. E. Eichholz (London: Heinemann, 1958–1966): 2.95.9. Although Fontenrose refutes Plutarch’s testimony concerning the fumes, he presents a long line of sources and a wide range of evidence to support the existence of some sort of geological phenomena that occurred in the cave, leading to its association with Hades; see Fontenrose, The Delphic Oracle, pp. 197–203. See also Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess, p. 72; Ustinova, Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind, pp. 125–137; Luigi Piccardi, et al. “Scent of a Myth: Tectonics, Geochemistry and Geomythology at Delphi (Greece),” Journal of the Geological Society, 165.1 (2008), pp. 5–18. 106 See note 99. 107 For the association between Great Mother entities to the dragon as being one and the same, see Elliot G. Smith, Evolution of the Dragon (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2006), pp. 140–234; Neumann, The Great Mother, pp. 144–145; Erich Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness, fore. Carl G. Jung, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970), pp. 49, 131–145. For the inspiration from the Stoic theory of the pneuma, see Parke and Wormell, The Delphic Oracle, p. 23. 108 Giordano, “From Gaia to the Pythia.” 109 See discussion in Chapter One.

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entrance to the underworld, then the Delphic cave was a symbol of the dragon’s body. In the Homeric hymn to Pythian Apollo, the dying female dragon is described as breathing blood. Her flowing blood and the sun shining on her body cause a smell of rot, suggesting that the cave is a metaphor for the body of the dragon.110 Euripides’s Iphigeneia among the Tauroi describes the dragon as occupying the cave, as a chthonic oracle that is of the Earth (Gaia).111 Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Menander Rhetor’s Peri epideiktikon are later sources that suggest an analogy between the dragon and the entire mountain.112 Approximately during the same period, Hyginus’s Fabulae also presents Python as the oracle, describing it as a monumental creature born from the earth.113 These literary sources echo visual associations of the dragon and the mountain such as on a white-ground lekythos (figs. 15a, and b), as well as the copy of the now lost Apulian neck amphora painting in Johann H. W. Tischbein and William Hamilton’s Collection of Engravings from Ancient Vases.114 This evidence leads to the conclusion that the image and function of the dragon were connected to the actual Delphic temple cave, and were not merely mentioned in a collection of disparate myths; the dragon was meant to represent the cave, its previous owner, and its oracular function. Moreover, the cave is identified with the actual body of the dragon, the spring is identified with its blood (a theme that is also connected with the blood sacrifice that took place in the cave), and the fumes meant to inspire oracles are identified with the venom – “Black wounds [that] poured forth their poison.”115 The mythical construction of the tripod from Python’s bones, the coiling of Python’s body around the tripod and omphalos, and the pulling of the Pythia’s hair all lead to the conclusion that the dead dragon in the myth, which influenced real rituals, alludes to the essential role of this mythical creature in the oracular process.116 Arthur B. Cook, in his book Zeus, analyzes the omphalos and the tripod’s association with Zeus, and identifies the artistic connection between the tripod and Python. He refutes earlier suggestions that this association was a late Roman one by citing several pieces of evidence, such as the previously mentioned Apollo in a Praxitelean-style sculpture at Dresden’s Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, and a copy of a Greek bronze statue in the Praxitelean style from the fourth century BCE.117 110 “To Pythian Apollo,” in The Homeric Hymns: 362, 369, 371. 111 Fryer, “‘Euripides’ ‘Iphigeneia among the Tauroi’”: IT 1234–1283, on Gaia: 1245–1248. 112 Ovid, Metamorphoses: 1.440; Menander Rhetor, Peri epideiktikon (Oxford: Clarendon Pr., 1981): 3.17. 113 Hyginus, Fabulae: 140; Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, pp. 39–40. 114 Hamilton, and Tischbein, Collection of Engravings from Ancient Vases, III, fig. 4. For different and later pronunciations of the name Pythias, see Fontenrose, The Delphic Oracle, p. 196, n. 1. 115 “To Pythian Apollo,” in The Homeric Hymns: 362, 369, 371–372. 116 See note 58. 117 A. Cook, Zeus, II, pp. 182–183, 186–197.

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Based on several descriptions of the Plataean tripod at Delphi, Paul Stephenson offers two suggestions for its reconstruction: one with three serpent-shaped legs coiled around one another under the center of the tripod bowl, and the other with three legs designed as outstretched serpents to balance its weight (fig. 6).118 Further proof of the ancient connection between Apollo and Python is the Xenokrateia relief from Phaleron, originally from the Sanctuary of Echelidai at New Phaleron and now in the Athens National Museum, which depicts Apollo seated on a tripod with a backrest representing a serpent and Pegasus.119 The artistic evidence shows that from at least the fourth century BCE, Python was firmly established as related to the tripod and the prophetic process. The Great Mother manifested as a dragon is investigated by Elliot G. Smith in “The Birth of Aphrodite,” the last chapter of his 1919 book The Evolution of the Dragon. Smith claims that following the emergence of the topos of the end of humanity, associated with the concept of the end of time and of Doom’s Day, the Great Mother began to be associated with evil and mercilessness, which were symbolized by the cobra and the lioness.120 The current study, by contrast, argues that manifestations of the Great Mother as a serpent should not be viewed as in any way evil in the context of ancient cultures. Nevertheless, it is useful to refer to Smith’s list of the archaeological evidence that presents images of the Great Mother with or as a dragon. Most important is the statue of a goddess holding a caduceus from Crete, which alludes to Aphrodite.121 This iconography of the dragon as an attribute of the Great Mother goddess is also discussed at length by both Cook and Erich Neumann.122 Although controversial and archaic, the vast body of evidence presented by Smith, Cook and Neumann is more than sufficient to prove that the Great Mother was frequently represented as or together with a dragon. This also explains why a great number of dragons represented during the Greek Archaic period were female. Fontenrose’s analysis assumes that Apollo encountered three dragon deities: the anguiform deity of Telphusa, Python, and Delphyne. Ogden distinguishes between dragons that are gendered male or female: when presented as the masculine dragon Python, the mythical creature combats a grown Apollo; Ogden identifies this dragon as the iconographic attribute of Apollo. The female dragon identified as Delphyne appears opposite the infant or young Apollo, and is associated with the theme of 118 A. Cook, Zeus, II, pp. 195 (n. 1), 196 (nn. 3–5); Paul Stephenson, The Serpent Column: A Cultural Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 29–96. 119 Nikolaos Kaltsas, Sculpture in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, trans. David Hardy (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2002), p. 133. 120 E. Smith, Evolution of the Dragon, pp. 228–234. 121 Ibid., pp. 230–231. 122 A. Cook, Zeus, I, pp. 197–299; Neumann, The Great Mother, pp. 211–239; Fontenrose, Python, pp. 94–120.

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Leto’s pregnancy. Both Fontenrose and Ogden recognized in Greco-Roman myths the persistent presence of horrible female dragons such as Lamia, Scylla, and Echidna, to which Ketos, Hydra, and Medusa must be added.123 There is therefore quite a long list of female dragons that fight men (sometimes ending up victorious, as in the case of Scylla). However, dragons do not fight women; on the contrary, they unite, converse, and collaborate with them.124 Following the claim that the dragon is a paradigmatic sign of the Great Mother and is associated with the Earth and chthonic elements, the femininity of dragons in ancient Greek is well attested for. During the Roman Imperial period, dragons largely came to be gendered male, yet remained related to the elements of the earth, water, and nature, which were still associated with women.125 Fontenrose also discusses the connection between Python and Dionysus, proclaiming them to be one and the same. This association is based on several pieces of evidence, one of which is the myth directly related to Delphi, which concerns Dionysus being born to Persephone after she was impregnated by Zeus in the form of a snake. This myth describes the Titans dismembering Dionysus at Delphi, where the omphalos functioned as his tomb (considered to be the grave of Python in other sources). The tale about the queen of the underworld becoming impregnated by a serpent and Dionysus’s annual winter tenure at Delphi, are related to the cycle of life. Plutarch describes an annual cycle in Delphi in which Apollo rules the oracle for nine months and then retreats in the winter, at which time Dionysus takes over the temple; the two opposing gods represent the cycle of the seasons and the binary nature of the Delphic oracle: the Apollonian and the Dionysian.126 A bell-krater from the Antikenmuseum Basel, dated to ca. 430 BCE, probably illustrates this myth; Apollo, intertwined with two dragons, stands on the omphalos and holds the laurel tree, lording over a dismembered Dionysus.127 This vase supports Fontenrose’s theory of the double dragons, Python and Delphyne, in Delphi. In this visual image, the serpents may also symbolically represent Persephone – as the Great Mother Goddess closely connected with the underworld and Demeter – and Zeus’s great eagle and serpent, typical symbols of his incarnation as a storm deity.128 The motif of the two circling serpents is also related to the caduceus, to the Cadmos and Harmonia myth discussed above, and to the theme of the serpent as a symbol of time, as discussed in 123 Apollodorus, The Library: 1.6.3. Fontenrose, Python, pp. 13–14, 94–120; Ogden, Drakōn, p. 44. 124 For exceptions, see Introduction note 2. 125 Rebecca Flemming, Medicine and the Making of Roman Women: Gender, Nature, and Authority from Celsus to Galen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 107–108; Rebecca Flemming, “Galen’s Generations of Seeds,” Reproduction: Antiquity to The Present Day (2018), pp. 95–108. 126 Fontenrose, Python, pp. 378–381. 127 “Apollon,” in LIMC, II/2, fig. 273. 128 A. Cook, Zeus, II, pp. 233–267; Parke and Wormell, The Delphic Oracle, pp. 11–12.

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the previous chapter. The double dragons in Delphi also allude to the Laconian cup by the Cavaliers Painter, which represents a warrior (Cadmos or Apollo) combating a dragon while another dragon climbs upon a temple and a bird (perhaps an eagle) appears behind the warrior.129 Although officially closed by the Roman Emperor Theodosius (347–395 CE) in 393, the Delphic oracle is documented as active into the seventh century CE. Early Christian sources ridicule the manic behavior of the Pythia when inspiration comes upon her through her genitalia. Parke also notes that the Delphic Pythia provided inspiration for the Sibyls, which were accepted and elevated as holy figures by Christian leaders in late antiquity and in the Byzantine era as precursors of Christianity. Parke even specifically identifies one female, documented in the sixth century BCE, who was nicknamed Oracula Sibyllina, as in fact a Pythia.130 The myth of Apollo and Python continued to be charged with new theological interpretations, as demonstrated by Barnard in her investigation of the Apollo and Daphne myth. Due to the dragon-slayer topos, this myth was later viewed as representing the Archangel Michael or Saint George (an identification that was also inspired by the Perseus myth).131 Thus, while becoming indisputably masculine, Python nevertheless maintained its vestigial female connotations.

Python and Drakōn – The Dragon is the Goddess and the Cave A dragon interacting with a virgin in a womb-like cave, alongside a spring and a tree, appeared in numerous myths and rituals both inside and beyond the borders of the Greco-Roman world.132 As will be further demonstrated, the motif of the woman and the dragon is consistent with these symbols. The dragon is aligned 129 Conrad M. Stibbe, Lakonische Vasenmaler des sechsten Jahrhunderts vor Chr: Supplement (Mainz and Rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 2004), p. 170. 130 Origen, Origen against Celsus, trans. James Bellamy (London: Robinson, 1660): 7.3; Aristophanes (School of), Plutus (Adelaide: University of Adelaide Library, 2008): 39; John of Antioch, in FHG, Müller, IV: F1. Herbert W. Parke, Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy in Classical Antiquity, ed. by B. C. McGing (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 1–7, on the Delphic oracle, see p. 4, n. 6; Ustinova, Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind, p. 123. 131 Erwin Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955), pp. 146–168, particularly 151–164; Mary E. Barnard, The Myth of Apollo and Daphne from Ovid to Quevedo: Love, Agon, and the Grotesque (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1987), pp. 70–81; Daniel Ogden, Perseus (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 136–138; Oya Pancaroğlu, “The Itinerant Dragon-Slayer: Forging Paths of Image and Identity in Medieval Anatolia,” Gesta, 43.2 (2004), pp. 151–164; Simona Cohen, Animals as Disguised Symbols in Renaissance Art (Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 165–193; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 402–404. 132 Waldemar Deonna, “L’arbre, le serpent et la jeune femme,” in Mélanges Henri Grégoire, ed. Henri Gregoire (Brussels: Secrétariat des Éditions de l’Institut, 1949), pp. 197–205.

The Cave and the Womb: The My th of Cadmus and the My th of Apollo and Py thon 

with a Great Mother, while the woman represents the cave as a womb, which also symbolizes the Great Mother’s emissary. As noted, the elements of a cave, a spring, and a tree, though not always presented together, allude to an oracular event related to Great Mother goddesses. The Cadmos and Apollo myths share the same features and follow similar patterns. Both allude to the coupling of a woman and a dragon: Telphusa or Python in Apollo’s case, and the Delphic Pythia associated with it, as well as the enigmatic female with Drakōn in the Cadmos myth. Each hero is lead to a location already sacred to a divine being: Delphi was dedicated to Gaia, Themis, and perhaps others, and the cave and spring where Thebes was established were dedicated to Ares. The corpses of dragons in both myths were related to a Great Mother: the teeth of the dragon were the seeds of new life in the Cadmos myth, while Python’s body parts formed and cover the tripod and the omphalos in Delphi, where its body was also identif ied with the cave and spring and its venom was identified as the source of the toxic fumes that inspired the Pythia’s prophesies. Ares’s drakōn also functioned as the sacred location where Thebes was established, much like Python symbolized the sacred location in which the god’s most important temple was established. Particularly important is the atonement of the hero and god for the death of the dragon: Cadmos had to suffer the wrath of Ares and eventually exile, and Apollo had to leave the temple for several months each year in order to repent to Gaia for slaying Python (there are several variations for this story).133 Returning to the Cassel Painter’s bell-krater (fig. 8) and other vases of the same type (figs. 9–10), one can note the presence of an iconographical group centered on a woman and a dragon symbolizing a holy location and virgin ground, which introduces us to this socially structured concept. The sacred location is usually identified in Greek paintings by a pile of rocks or a tree, such as the rocks that Apollo used to bury Telphusa,134 which also appear in the iconography of the Cadmos myth as represented on a calyx crater by the Python Painter (fig. 7). As this chapter has shown, the motif of the woman and the dragon was at the root of the Delphic oracle, and its presence is also evident at other sacred locations such as Apollo’s Sanctuary at Epirus, the oikouros ophis on the Acropolis in Athens, and the Lanuvium sanctuary, 133 Anaxandrides, “Historicus,” in FGrH, Jacoby: F.Gr.404.f.5; Aristo of Pella, “Anth Lyrics,” in FHG, Müller: 16.Ib.17, fr. 86–89, 194, 34; Strabo, The Geography: 9.3.12; Pausanias, Description of Greece: 2.7.7, 2.30.3, 10.5.9, 10.6.407; Aelian, Historical Miscellany, ed. and trans. N. G. Wilson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997): 3.1; Lucan, The Civil War: 6.407; Plutarch, The Morals: 3.417f–418b, 421c.2, 293c.6, 1136a; Servius, Commentary on the Aeneid of Virgil: 4.377. Fontenrose sees the myths of Cadmos and Perseus as parallel to that of Apollo, and proves the resemblance; see Fontenrose, Python, pp. 274–320. On Apollo’s punishment, see Parke and Wormell, The Delphic Oracle, p. 8. 134 Fontenrose, Python, pp. 366–374.

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which was probably dedicated to Juno Sospita.135 This motif is consistently related to a Great Mother deity, which metaphorically symbolizes the land, as well as to the creation myths of specific locations. The dragon image, the Great Mother, and the virgin reflect the idea of birth and death as liminal locations, as will be further discussed regarding Andromeda and Medusa. The woman and the dragon thus appear as complex symbols of both physical and social liminality, and are present at moments of transition between life and death and in sacred places of creation and generation, where they are charged with communicating and transforming knowledge from the underworld. Throughout the Greek era, dragons were predominantly female, and almost every masculine dragon has a myth of origin related to a Great Mother. For example, Erichthonius originates in Gaia and Athena; Typhon comes from Gaia or Hera.136 By exploring this connection, the current chapter further elucidates the ways in which combat between a male hero and a dragon is a symbolic manifestation of the clash between a patriarchal society and an earlier matriarchal culture, illustrating the tension between male dominance and the female ability to generate life, which leads to displays of both fear and appreciation towards women. According to Pailler’s “La vierge et le serpent de la trivalence à l’ambiguїté,” the union of a woman and a dragon was revered in Rome. The motif of the woman and the dragon was a manifestation of holiness of the Vestal Virgins, as extensions of the Lanuvium sanctuary probably dedicated to Juno Sospita.137 The central motif of Isis’s image in her mystery cult, with or as a serpent, is based on Hathor.138 These images reveal the power inherent in the motif in question, which increased over time. It is almost inevitable that exclusively monotheist religions found this motif troubling and cast it in a negative light. To conclude, the motif of the woman and the dragon presents a sacred scenario centered on creation, death, and the liminal character of these processes. The entrance of a cave represents not only a dragon’s mouth, but also a vaginal entrance to the womb of the earth-cow, the Great Mother of creation and destruction, which also symbolizes the dragon’s actual body. As this chapter has demonstrated, the motif of the woman and the dragon was rooted in a holy union, which enabled them to communicate and collaborate, performing oracular acts that preserved earlier traditions of Great Goddess cults, leading to sacred knowledge. The following chapters will explore the disruption of this union, and its relation to the loss of the holy woman’s virginity. 135 Jean-Marie Pailler, “La vierge et le serpent de la trivalence à l’ambiguїté,” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome antiquité, 109 (1997), pp. 513–575, particularly pp. 516–523; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 203–206, 347–359. 136 Ustinova, “Snake-Limbed and Tendril-Limbed Goddesses.” 137 Pailler, “La vierge et le serpent de la trivalence à l’ambiguїté,” pp. 516–523. 138 “Isis,” in LIMC, V/1, fig. 77, V/2, pp. 333–364.

3.

Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa Abstract: The hero Perseus encounters both Andromeda and Medusa, two opposite types associated with the motif of the woman and the dragon. This chapter reveals the complexity of these related myths, while shifting the focus to their female protagonists. This epistemological perspective illuminates social views, desires, and fears concerning women in ancient Greco-Roman cultures. By contrasting the “good” and the “defiled” woman, the discussion clarifies why the sacred connection between a woman and a dragon must be severed at the threshold of marriage, and how her identity as a “Bride of Death” alludes to the transformation experienced in this moment. By contrast, a defiled holy woman, such as Medusa, cannot exist within patriarchal culture, and must be isolated, killed, or controlled. Key Words: Andromeda, Medusa, Perseus, marriage, Great Goddess, Bride of Death.

The myth of Perseus and Andromeda has endured since antiquity as one of the best known and most popular myths in Western culture. Watkins, who examines the Indo-European roots of the dragon-slayer topos, relates it to similar myths from Indian, Persian, and Mesopotamian literary sources, and traces its roots to an earlier, perhaps pre-literary era.1 Although this myth is indeed typical of the dragon-slayer topos, every culture has emphasized different aspects of it. The myth of Perseus and Medusa also has roots that can be traced back to the third millennium BCE, and is considered by many scholars to have developed from the monstrous Mesopotamian Humbaba, who has a similarly terrifying appearance and a deadly gaze. This chapter examines artistic and literary renditions of these two myths in the context of Greco-Roman culture, and contrasts them with one another. Examining the same hero in two contrasting scenarios involving a woman and a dragon allows for an exploration of the complex meanings of the interactions between them. As 1 Calvert Watkins, How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 297–438.

Khalifa-Gueta, S., The Woman and the Dragon in Premodern Art. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023. doi 10.5117/9789463723572_ch03

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the following discussion will show, artistic representations of these myths depict a wide range of symbolic attributes, which were transformed over time in reaction to cultural changes, thus reflecting the gravitation to different sites of meaning. As I demonstrated in the previous chapter, the motif of the woman and the dragon centers on a sacred event, presided over by a holy woman. This chapter attends to two additional types represented in the context of this motif – the “good woman,” who may serve as an eligible wife, and the “holy-defiled woman.” In the first case, the dragon desires to form an alliance with the woman, yet is thwarted by a man who separates them and ruptures their sacred union, thus making her eligible for marriage. In the second case, a holy woman forming a sacred union with a dragon is defiled by a masculine sexual act. As I will suggest, this second type of woman is intimidating since she challenges gender boundaries and the limits and authority of patriarchy; hence a mythical visual narrative that portrays her petrifying powers as coming entirely under masculine control. The following analysis is based on a rich body of scholarship that investigates these two myths and their representations, while focusing largely on the dragonslayer topos. In contrast to earlier scholarship, however, this investigation is the first to approach the interaction between a woman and a dragon from an epistemological perspective, by shifting the focus of attention to the female perspective and to the gender roles enacted in these myths.2 By examining these stories and images from a perspectives that centers on Andromeda and Medusa, and re-evaluating their relationships with the dragon, I point to concerns and values significant to the patriarchal social structure and to its view of women. As I will demonstrate, these concerns will prove highly significant for the further understanding of the woman and the dragon motif in Greco-Roman culture. Ovid’s Metamorphoses, written in the early first century CE, is perhaps the best-known surviving literary source concerning the Greek variations of these two myths.3 In Book IV, Ovid presents Perseus as the offspring of Cadmos, who, together with his wife Harmonia, was transformed into a snake. This connection hints at the dragon-related origins of Perseus as enabling him to defeat a dragon. Ovid first tells the story of Perseus and Andromeda, and then goes back in time to Perseus’s encounter with Medusa. This choice highlights the comparison between these two disparate encounters involving women and dragons, and stresses the differences between the two female figures. 2 Marjorie L. DeVault, “Talking and Listening from Women’s Standpoint: Feminist Strategies for Interviewing and Analysis,” Social Problems, 37.1 (1990), pp. 96–116. 3 G. Karl Galinsky, “Ovid’s Metamorphosis of Myth,” in Perspectives of Roman Poetry: A Classics Symposium, ed. Karl Galinsky (Basel; Berlin; Boston: University of Texas Press, 1974), pp. 105–128; Sara Mack, Ovid (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), pp. 26–29; Katharina Volk, Ovid (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell 2010), pp. 50–64.

Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa 

The Eligible Wife: Andromeda and Perseus Flying over the coast of Ethiopia as he flees the Gorgons, Perseus sees a beautiful maiden being sacrificed to a sea dragon named Ketos. This is Andromeda, the daughter of King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopea (Cassiepeia), who is paying the price for her mother’s boastful proclamation that Andromeda was more beautiful than the Nereids, the sea nymphs that often accompany Poseidon. Perseus falls in love with Andromeda, wants to save her, and approaches her father to ask for her hand in marriage. Cepheus agrees, concealing from Perseus the fact that Andromeda has already been promised to her uncle Phineus. Although he possesses the deadliest weapon in the ancient world – the head of Medusa – Perseus chooses to confront and slay Ketos (mostly identified as a female in literary sources) with his harpe (a bent sword). 4 Once Andromeda has been liberated, Phineus and his entourage confront Perseus, renewing her uncle’s claim to her hand. This time, Perseus chooses to use Medusa’s head, turning all his opponents into stone. Perseus and Andromeda are then married.5 The first visual evidence of the Perseus and Andromeda myth is the image on a Corinthian amphora dated 575–550 BCE (fig. 18), which shows Perseus, identified by name, aiming what look like circular stones at a gigantic doglike Ketos. Andromeda, also identified by name, stands on the right, her posture indicating that she is tied, although no rope is visible. Both Ketos and Andromeda are intriguingly portrayed as having white skin, while Perseus is portrayed in black, the color typically chosen for male protagonists on black-figured vases. Perseus is naked except for the hat and winged sandals given to him by Hermes, and carries a bag assumed to contain Medusa’s severed head. The stones portrayed as Perseus’ chosen weapon, instead of the harpe sword typically attributed to him, lead Ogden to relate this scene to the story of Heracles and Hesione, in which Hercules uses stones to fight the sea monster.6 This initial observation of the image already underscores the resemblance between Ketos and Andromeda during this early historical period, 4 Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. A. D. Melville, intro. and notes. Edward J. Kenney (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998): 5.18. 5 Ibid.: 4.663–739, 5.1–235. Lord Raglan, “The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama,” in In Quest of the Hero, eds. Alan Dundes, Lord Raglan, and Otto Rank, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 89–177; Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), I, pp. 307–309. 6 Ernst Pfuhl, Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen (Munich: Bruckmann, 1923), III, fig. 190; Humfry Payne, Necrocorinthia: A Study of Corinthian Art in the Archaic Period (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931), no. 1431; Luigia A. Stella, Mitologia greca (Turin: Unione Tipograf ico-Editrice Torinese, 1956), p. 506; “Andromeda I,” in Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae (LIMC) (Zurich: Artemis, 1981–1999), I/1, p. 775, II/2, fig. 1; Daniel Ogden, Drakōn: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 124.

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Figure 18 – Perseus and Andromeda, 575–550 BCE, late Corinthian black-figure amphora, Berlin State Museum, Berlin (F. 1625) © Staatliche Museum.

while stressing that the two belong together despite the fact that Perseus separates them, gesturing with one stone toward the female dragon and with the other toward Andromeda. The earliest literary evidence of the Perseus and Andromeda myth appears in Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women, which mentions them as a married couple without further elaboration,7 while the first evidence of the mythical narrative appears in fragments of tragedies by Sophocles and Euripides.8 These and other fragments of literary and visual evidence suggest that the early myth was very similar to the narrative told by Ovid. Oliver Taplin and Konrad Schauenburg claim that the focal tension of Euripides’s tragedy was Cepheus’s reluctance to give his approval for 7 Hesiod, “Catalogue of Women,” in Hesiod, ed. and trans. Glenn W. Most (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018): F135 MW. 8 “Andromeda,” in The Papyrus Fragments of Sophocles: An Edition with Prolegomena and Commentary, Richard Carden, cont. William S. Barrett (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1974): fr. 126–136; Euripides, “Andromeda,” in Selected Fragmentary Plays, trans. intro. and comm. Christophe Collard, Martin J. Cropp, and John Gibert (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 2004): FFl. 15a, 120, 129, 129a, 136, 145, 146; Daniel Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers in the Classical and Early Christian Worlds: A Sourcebook (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 108–111, 162–170. Christopher W. Marshall, The Structure and Performance of Euripides’ Helen (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 140–187.

Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa 

Andromeda’s marriage to Perseus.9 From the fifth century BCE onward, Andromeda is depicted as passive, and the crucial moment in the narrative is the handshake between Perseus and Cepheus, implying that Andromeda’s opinion on this matter was of little importance. The most significant analysis of artistic portrayals of the Andromeda myth is Kyle M. Phillips’ article “Perseus and Andromeda,” which identifies several iconographic types during the Greco-Roman era.10 The present study, although inspired by Phillips’s work, offers a different typology: I relate the first type of portrayal to the tragedy of Sophocles, as manifested in several Attic vase paintings, four of which were discovered in Italy and were created prior to 430 BCE. These vases mostly portray the process of binding Andromeda to one or two wooden posts, which Phillips notes was considered a capital punishment in Athens. These five Attic vases present the different parts of the narrative: the preparation of the posts, the preparation of Andromeda, Cepheus mourning his daughter’s fate, the moment when Perseus falls in love with her, and so forth. These vases include an Attic hydria dated to 460–430 BCE, now in the British Museum, London, and an Attic pelike from dated to circa 460 BCE (fig. 19), now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which presents the process of binding Andromeda to a pole. The scene is located in Ethiopia, as indicated by the black African servant binding Andromeda.11 Vases found in Sicily, which probably originated in Tarentum, echo the paintings on these Attic vases and are considered copies of them. One example of these Tarentine vases is the Darius Painter’s red-figured calyx crater from the Matera Museum, Italy, dated to 350–325 BCE. Phillips suspects that these vase paintings were all based on a large and well-known wall painting in Athens.12 The significant amount of evidence concerning representations of this myth proves its popularity in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, while pointing to the striking absence of the dragon from the represented scenes, especially in light of the sixth-century BCE Corinthian amphora (fig. 18) that includes the iconography of combat with a dragon. This omission highlights the meaning and function of the dragon when it reemerges. Significantly, Cassiopea – whose boasting placed her daughter in this dreadful position in the first place – is also absent from depictions of this scene. 9 Konrad Schauenburg, “Kreusa in Delphi,” Archäologischer Anzeiger, 99.1 (1988), pp. 633–665; Oliver Taplin, Pots and Plays: Interactions between Tragedy and Greek Vase-Painting of the Fourth Century BC (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007), p. 176. 10 Kyle M. Phillips, “Perseus and Andromeda,” American Journal of Archaeology, 72.1 (January 1968), pp. 1–23. 11 Herbert Hoffmann, Museum of Fine Arts (Boston: Billetin, 1963), LXI/325, pp. 108–109; “Andromeda I,” in LIMC, I/2, figs. 2–5, 7–8. 12 Phillips, “Perseus and Andromeda,” p. 8; “Andromeda I,” in LIMC, I/2, figs. 9–18, Taplin, Pots and Plays, pp. 174–186.

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Figure 19 – Workshop of the Niobid Painter, Andromeda, ca. 460 century BCE, red-figure Attic pelike, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (63.2663) © MFA, public domain.

The issue repeatedly explored in these vase paintings is the relationship between marriage and death. Cepheus, the mourning father, alludes to Andromeda’s approaching death just as Perseus arrives to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage. The parade of gifts depicted on the vases is also worthy of consideration. Most of the vase paintings that portray Andromeda during this period show items related to weddings and funerals. For example, the Attic hydria in the British Museum includes a stool carried on a servant’s head, a ribbon, a covered pyxis, a mirror, an alabastron, and a small wooden box. In the Attic pelike in the Boston’s Museum of

Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa 

Fine Arts (fig. 19), an Ethiopian servant appears with a stool and a box. These objects all allude to the well-known ancient Greek theme of “the bride of Hades/death.”13 The second group of vases, found in southern Italy, presents Andromeda tied to a cave entrance, and includes a fragment of an Apulian red-figured pelike from the Martin von Wagner Museum in Germany, and a fragment of an Apulian red-figured amphora by the Darius Painter from Ruvo. Phillips and Ogden note the shift in the iconography from depictions of Andromeda being tied to posts to depictions of her being attached to the entrance of a cave, and sees it as paralleling the shift from her appearance in Sophocles’ tragedy to her appearance in Euripides’ play.14 The iconography inspired by Sophocles, which presents Andromeda tied to one or two posts, migrated from Attica to southern Italy (most notably to Sicily) and persisted there, while a new iconography that echoed Euripides’s portrayal of Andromeda bound to a rock or cave entrance in his play arose in Athens.15 Phillips presents the conceptual association between the poles and the entrance of the cave by listing numerous myths in which the entrance to a cave is associated with death, as in the stories of Eurydice, Actaeon, and Philoctetes, and as detailed in the previous chapter. Phillips concludes that the Athenian capital punishment of being left exposed and bound to two posts alluded to the arched opening of a cave as the entrance to the underworld. As noted earlier, the paradigmatic association between the poles and the cave entrance underscores Andromeda’s role as “the bride of death,”16 as well 13 Phillips, “Perseus and Andromeda,” pp. 4–6; Ken Dowden, Death and the Maiden: Girls’ Initiation Rites in Greek Mythology (London: Routledge, 1989). 14 “Andromeda,” in The Papyrus Fragments of Sophocles, Carden: fr. 126–136; Euripides, “Andromeda,” in Selected Fragmentary Plays, Collard, Cropp, and Gibert: fr. 125; Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae (Adelaide: University of Adelaide Library, 2008): 1105–1106. Phillips, “Perseus and Andromeda,” pp. 7–8; Oliver Taplin claimed that these are not indicators for Sophocles’s play and in fact contends several pages later that the pols are a deflection of Euripides’s tradition, and two tree’s pillars actually allude to a different tradition. His claim is nonetheless unsatisfactory, particularly for the known beginning of Euripides’s Andromeda, in which Andromeda talks to Echo, her sole companion when she is tied and awaits her death. Echo must have been associated with a cave; see Taplin, Pots and Plays, pp. 174–86; on Echo, see ibid., p. 174; Daniel Ogden, Perseus (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 69–71. 15 Phillips explains at length the relationship between Athens and Sicily; see Phillips, “Perseus and Andromeda,” p. 8. 16 Phillips, “Perseus and Andromeda,” p. 11; Ogden, Perseus, pp. 69–71. On the connection between marriage and death, see Jürgen Thimme, “Die Stele der Hegeso als Zeugnis des attischen Grabkultes,” Antike Kunst, 7.H1 (1964), pp. 16–29, particularly pp. 21–22; Margaret Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1974), p. 12; James Redfield, “Notes on the Greek Wedding,” Arethusa, 15.1 (1982), pp. 188–189; Ian Jenkins, “Is There Life After Marriage?: A Study of the Abduction Motif in Vase Paintings of the Athenian Wedding Ceremony,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, 30.1 (1983), pp. 137–145, particularly p. 142; Richard Seaford, “The Tragic Wedding,” Journal of Hellenic Studies, 10 (1987), pp. 106–130; Dowden, Death and the Maiden; Richard Seaford, “The Imprisonment of Women in Greek Tragedy,” Journal of Hellenic Studies, 105 (1990), pp. 76–77; Judith M. Barringer, “Europa and the Nereids: Wedding or Funeral?,” American Journal of Archaeology, 95.4

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Figure 20 – Perseus and Andromeda, Campanian Red-Figure Bell-Krater, James Logie Memorial Collection, University of Canterburg, Christchurch (375–350 BC) (183.97) © Photograph courtesy of the Teece Museum of Classical Antiquities, University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Photographer Duncan Shaw Brown.

Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa 

as her connection to the dragon and to the great womb. The wedding/funeral gifts further emphasize the meaning of this scene as the liminal moment in which a maiden metamorphoses into a bride. The third group of vases is the first to depict a dragon, while alternating between the wedding and funeral symbols described above. A Campanian bell-krater dated to 375–350 BCE, now in the James Logie Memorial Collection, University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand (fig. 20), is the first painting after the Corinthian vase to represent a dragon in the scene, though no combat takes place.17 The composition is artificial and static: a register of sea waves separates the scene from the viewer, while Andromeda and Ketos seem to emerge behind the waves – perhaps directly inspired by a theatrical performance. This third type is presented in several Apulian red-figured vases that represent the dragon-slayer topos, including a pelike dated to ca. 330 BCE, now in the Armentum National Museum in Naples, and an Apulian loutrophoros from the Naples National Museum dated to about the same time (fig. 21). The paintings on these vases are similar to each other, and are presumed to have another, larger painting as their source. In this type, the wedding/funeral signs are paradigmatically replaced by a more obvious sign – a dragon. The dragon connotes similar themes of marriage and death, albeit as part of a more complex metaphorical constellation pertaining to death and the underworld, interaction with a holy woman, and a connection to a god or goddess. Phillips recognizes the Darius Painter’s loutrophoros (fig. 21) as a case in which the loutrophoros itself is one of the wedding/funeral objects, so that the painting’s material enhances the meaning of the represented scene.18 Andromeda was betrothed to Phineus, but her fate changed when she was taken to be sacrificed to the monster. Phineus, who was unwilling or unable to fight the dragon, proved himself to be an unworthy groom. Only when promised to Perseus, who committed to rescue her, was she saved from death. This aspect of the narrative transforms the dragon into a metaphor for the challenges of marriage and the obligations it involves. This iconographic type continues to portray Andromeda tied to two posts in the Sophoclean tradition, while offering a more elaborate depiction of the scene, with Cassiopeia being represented for the first time. The appearance of the dragon (October 1991), pp. 657–667. On the connection between Andromeda and the theme of “the bride of Hades,” see Margot Schmidt, Der Dareiosmaler und sein Umkreis: Untersuchungen zur spätapulischen Vasenmalerei (Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1960), pp. 43–50, which contends that this idea is only represented in southern Italy; Eva C. Keuls, “Aspetti religiosi della Magna Grecia nell’eta romana,” Atti del convengo di studi sulla Magna Grecia, Taranto, 15 (1976), pp. 439–458, particularly p. 451, pl. 7. 17 Teece Museum of Classical Antiquities: http://teecemuseum.nz/collection-item/1032456/ 18 A. Trendelenburg, “Anfora rappresante Perseo ed Andromeda,” Annali dell’Instituto di correspondenza archeologica, 44 (1872), pp. 108–130; Anna Rocco, II pittore del Vaso dei persiani (Florence: Stianti, 1953), especially pp. 81, 82, 173ff; Phillips, “Perseus and Andromeda,” p. 10.

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Figure 21 – Darius Painter, Perseus and Andromeda, 340–330 BCE, Apulian red-figure loutrophoros from Apulia, Naples National Museum, Naples (H.3225) © su conncessione del Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali e per il Turismo – Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli – photo Di Giorgio Alban.

Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa 

highlights the theme of “the bride of death,” which pertains to the liminal moment in which Andromeda dies as a maiden to become a bride. This moment is symbolically portrayed by the dragon, which represents the underworld kingdom and the actual and metaphorical threat of death. This theme is annotated in an ekphrasis by Achilles Tatius concerning a second-century-CE painting by Evanthes, which portrays Andromeda at Mount Casius in Pelusium: Her [Andromeda’s] hands were stretched out on the surface of the rock, a bond holding both of them fast to it above her head, so that her fingers hung like bunches of fruit from a vine; the arms of spotless white verging towards the livid, and the fingers white with the pallor of death. Thus was she bound, waiting for her fate, adorned for a bridal as one who was to be the bride of the King of Death.19

This ekphrasis vividly describes the contrasting events that Andromeda participates in at the same moment in the narrative – she is a bride set to marry a hero or a dragon, whichever prevails. Tatius names the dragon “the King of Death,” alluding once again to the underworld ruled by Hades. The liminal character of these events is underscored by the maiden’s positioning on the border between the safety of land and the chaotic realm of the sea related to the dragon, as well as between the land of the living and the underworld. As Ustinova notes, sea waves create caves when they meet rock, and such caves pervaded by water were often considered holy sites related to oracular activities in Greco-Roman culture.20 Porphyry, in his Numenius of Apame – a commentary on the nymph’s cave as described by Homer in Book 13 of the Odyssey – notes that the Persian Mithras cult held sacred all caves made by water. Thus, it makes perfect sense that Andromeda was positioned at the entrance to a cave as she awaited her union with the dragon.21 A minor detail that nevertheless bears mention appears in two vases on which Andromeda is represented naked – or, more precisely, exposed. One of these is the Attic red-figured pelike in the Musée du Louvre.22 Presenting Andromeda as naked 19 Achilles Tatius, Leucippe et Clitophon, trans. S. Gaseles (London: Heinemann, 1961): 3.7. 20 Yulia Ustinova, Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind: Descending Underground in the Search for Ultimate Truth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 61, 71–72. 21 Porphyry, On the Cave of the Nymphs, trans. Thomas Taylor, intro. Kathleen Raine (Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 1991): p. 31. 22 This pelike painting may have been inspired by Aristophanes’s comic play Thesmophoriazusae (Women at the Thesmophoria) of 411 BCE. In one scene in this hilarious comedy, Mnesilochus makes believe that he is Andromeda, and is represented on stage as if naked and with an enlarged artificial phallus added

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undermined the construction of her character as that of a respectable maiden. Ogden debates at length this decision to depict Andromeda as helplessly exposed, with her hands stretched out to the sides as if to embrace her new lover or her death, while extending her chest and emphasizing her breasts. Ogden recognizes this highly erotic scenario as ridiculing her character, as a react to comic episodes such as Phrynichus’s Andromeda, Antiphanes’s Andromeda, and Phormus’s Cepheus and Perseus (Suda s.v. Phormus). This erotically charged representation of Andromeda was widely reproduced until the early modern period.23 From this point onward, most representations of this myth depicted Andromeda as chained to or being unchained from a grotto, with the image of her being chained to poles resurfacing during the medieval period. The Darius Painter is one example of an artist who uses these two different types of iconography interchangeably: Andromeda is chained to a cave entrance on his Apulian amphora, and chained between two poles on his Apulian loutrophoros (fig. 21).24 The iconography of Andromeda as chained to a rock, meanwhile, is represented on a Campanian hydria from the Berlin State Museum, with Perseus portrayed in a combat position moving toward Ketos, which is depicted as a large fish. As the different representations of the dragon reveal, the image of Ketos was fluid; it could be represented as a fish or as a reptile resembling a crocodile with fins, according to the painter’s decision. Furthermore, in this scene Ketos has a conspicuous tongue stretching out of its mouth. This detail could be associated with Ogden’s discussion of the severed or removed body parts of dragons, which includes Medusa’s head, the Graeae’s eye, or the dragon’s tongue presented by Hercules after he slays it in the Heracles and Hesione myth.25 The most striking example of this type is an Apulian lutrophoros dated to 350–340 BCE (fig. 22), now in the Getty Museum in Malibu, California, which depicts the combat between Perseus and Ketos, while Andromeda is chained to a cave entrance above them. Seated on the back of Ketos is Eros, the god of love.26 The Darius Painter’s for comic value; see Aristophanes, “Thesmophoriazusae,” in Tragicorum graecorum fragmenta (TrGF), ed. Bruno Snell (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1971–2004): 1009–1135; Phrynichus, “Andromeda,” in TrGF, Snell: T1; Antiphanes, “Andromeda,” in TrGF, Snell: fr. 33K–A; “Andromeda I,” in LIMC, I/2, figs. 7, 20. 23 Ogden, Perseus, pp. 77–80; Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, pp. 165–168, pt. 110. 24 Richard Engelmann, “Andromeda: Mit einer Tafel und 2 Abbildungen,” Jahrbuch des kaiserlich deutschen archäologischen Instituts, 19 (January 1904), pp. 143–151. 25 Felix Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (FGrH) (Leiden: Brill, 1923): fr. 10; This fragmented tale was mentioned by Pausanias; see Pausanias, Description of Greece, trans. and eds. William H. S. Jones, Henry A. Ormerod, and Richard E. Wycherley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 1.41; Euripides, “Andromeda,” in Selected Fragmentary Plays, trans. intro. and comm. Christophe Collard, Martin J. Cropp, and John Gibert (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 2004): 136. Ogden, Perseus, pp. 97–98. Similarly, in a fragmented tale by Dieuchidas of Megara, Alcathous proves to the king of Magara that he slaughtered the Cithaeronian lion by presenting its tongue. 26 “Andromeda I,” in LIMC, I/2, fig. 13.

Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa 

Figure 22 – Perseus and Andromeda with Eros, 350–340 BCE, Apulian red-figure Lutrophoros, was returned to the Ministry of Culture in Apulia, Apulia – location unknown (84.AE.996) © Mary Harrsch.

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loutrophoros (fig. 21) also depicts Eros below Andromeda. Is Eros helping Perseus, or might his role in this episode be different? This unusual detail may have been inspired by a dialogue between Perseus and Eros in Euripides’s play, which refers to the feelings of love between Perseus and Andromeda, yet might also indicate something altogether different. Several decorative representations of Eros riding Ketos should be considered in this context, such as the mosaic from the house of the Tritons in Delos dated to 150–100 BCE. Ogden presents two texts in which Ketos is the opponent of Eros. The appearance of Eros in this scene persisted for several centuries, and appeared, for example, in a floor mosaic from the second to third century CE.27 As I would like to suggest, in this case it may hint at Ketos’ love for Andromeda, which had led to the male (or female) dragon’s struggle with the male hero. By the middle to the end of the third century BCE, depictions of Andromeda had become highly popular, particularly in southern Italy. Nicobule’s documentation suggests that plays about Andromeda continued to be performed in Greek, noting that Alexander the Great recited Euripides’s Andromeda from memory at his last dinner party.28 This documentation actually dates from almost five hundred years after Alexander’s death, so that the recounted incident might be apocryphal. In any event, numerous astronomical and historical texts recovered from the early Hellenistic period to the first century CE quoted the plays of Sophocles and Euripides, and there is evidence of Greek plays about Andromeda by Lycophron, Phrynichus, and Scylax; Latin writers such as Livius Anndronicus, and Ennius also wrote several plays about her.29 27 Philostratus the Athenian and Callistratus, Imagines; Descriptions, trans. Arthur Fairbanks (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931): 1.29; “Eros,” in LIMC, III/1, pp. 867–870, 877–888, III/2, figs. 157–192, 315–323; “Antiphilus,” in The Greek Anthology, ed. William R. Paton, trans. Michael A. Tueller (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014): 16.147. Ogden, Perseus, pp. 77–79; Taplin, Pots and Plays, p. 179, in which Taplin suggests this to be Nike, although the figure is male. 28 Karl F. W. Müller, ed., Fragmenta historicorum graecorum (FHG) (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1878–1885): fr. 2; Ian Worthington, Alexander the Great: A Reader (London: Routledge, 2012), p. 4. 29 Apollodorus of Athens, The Library, ed. and trans. James G. Frazer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014): 2.4.3; Eratosthenes of Cyrene, “Catasterismes,” in Perseus, Ogden, p. 71; Eratosthenes of Cyrene, Catastérismes, ed. intro. and notes. Jordi Pamias i Massana, trans. and notes. Arnaud Zucker (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2013), pp. 15–17, 22, 36; Lycophron, “Alexandea,” in TrGF, Snell, I: 100.T3; Phrynichus, “Andromeda,” in TrGF, Snell, I: 212.T1; Scylax, Pseudo-Skylax’s Periplous: The Circumnavigation of the Inhabited World Text, trans. and comm. Graham Shipley (Exeter, UK: Bristol Phoenix, 2011): 182.104 (GGM.79); Lucian, “The Way to Write History,” in The Works of Lucian of Samosata, trans. Henry Watson Fowler and Francis George Fowler (Adelaide: University of Adelaide Library, 2009), p. 24; Jacoby, FGrH: fr. 2; Livius Anndronicus, “Andromeda,” in Tragicorum romanorum fragmenta, Otto Ribbeck (Leipzig: Teubner, 1892), I: 30–32; Ennius, “Andromeda,” in Tragicorum romanorum fragmenta, Ribbeck, I: 3; Eric H. Warmington, Remains of Old Latin (London: Heinemann, 1967), I: fr. 136, Ennius, “Andromeda,” in Remains of Old Latin, Warmington, II: 254–261; Livius Anndronicus, “Andromeda,” in Remains of Old Latin, Warmington, II: 8–9; Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, pp. 162–177. Ogden, Perseus, pp. 70–72.

Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa 

The Hellenistic era introduced the fourth iconographic type employed in representations of this myth, in which, on one side of a vase, Andromeda is chained to a chair, while on the other side, Perseus moves forward with his foot atop an amphora, as in the Apulian oenochoe from Bari dated to 325–300 BCE. Cassiopea is also represented as seated on a chair on this oenochoe.30 This iconography might have served as the basis for the iconography common in mosaics of the second to fourth centuries CE, in which Perseus strides toward Andromeda and usually stands on the body of Ketos.31 Another iconographic feature promoted in Etruscan art is the nude Andromeda, as preserved on a bronze cista from Palestrina. At this point, however, the iconography of a nude Aphrodite was already well established and accepted, and nudity did not have the earlier effect of detracting from Andromeda’s chaste character.32 Although material evidence is fragmentary, and suggests a decline in the popularity of plays about Andromeda, they seem to have endured throughout the Hellenistic period and into the Roman Republic period. Among the most significant sites where further artistic representations of this myth have been found are Pompeii, Herculaneum, and neighboring villages, most notably in the Mythological Room fresco in the Villa Agrippa from Boscotrecase (fig. 23) and the fragmented fresco from House VII 15, 2, (i) in Pompeii. These paintings, which date to the same period as Ovid’s works, evince the increasing interest in the Andromeda myth during this time. The most important and beautiful example of the Andromeda iconography from Pompeii and its environs is from the Villa Agrippa (fig. 23). Here Andromeda is bound to a rock that juts up at the liminal point where the rocky shoreline meets the sea. Her arms are stretched to the sides as if crucified, and a silken garment gently falls from them, erotically highlighting her enticing curves. At her feet are wedding/funeral gifts. Cassiopea sits grieving on the rocky slope, so that Andromeda is out of her view. On the other side of the rock, a dragon emerges from the sea, its enormous head bearing a striking resemblance to a beautiful and exotic flower. Perseus appears twice in the composition, which portrays different moments in the narrative chronology. He emerges in flight on Andromeda’s right holding a sword, naked except for a cape and his Phrygian cap. Any evidence of Medusa’s head is notably missing. The second time he is seen is to the left of Andromeda, where he shakes hands with her father.33 30 “Andromeda I,” in LIMC, I/2, fig. 16. 31 “Andromeda I,” in LIMC, I/2, figs. 67–91. 32 Phillips, “Perseus and Andromeda,” p. 13. 33 Georges Papadopulos, “Appendix,” in The Paintings from Boscotrecase, Peter H. Von Blanckenhagen and Christine Alexander, appen. Georges Papadopulos (Heidelberg: Kerle, 1962); Peter H. Von Blanckenhagen and Christine Alexander, The Augustan Villa at Boscotrecase, contr. Joan R. Mertens and Christel Faltermeier (Mainz am Rhein: Von Zabern, 1990).

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Figure 23 – Perseus and Andromeda with Landscape, 11 BCE–2 CE, fresco from Villa Agrippa Postumus at Boscotrecase, Mythological Room, Metropolitan Museum, New York (MMA 20.192.16) © Met, public domain.

Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa 

There is no evidence whatsoever in the Villa Agrippa painting of combat between Perseus and the dragon, who both appear on the same side of the composition. Perseus’s sword is raised high as if to attack, but the two are so far away from each other that a combat scene seems improbable. Thus, it is difficult to agree with Phillips, who linked this iconography with that of third-century BCE vases depicting scenes of combat between Perseus and Ketos. Other paintings from that period, such as the fresco from House IX 7, 16, or the fresco from a house in region VI of Pompeii, all present an iconography depicting Andromeda on the rock and Perseus and Ketos as similarly distant from one another.34 Peter H. von Blanckenhagen claimed that these versions were inspired by a Hellenistic painting, and that the Villa Agrippa’s painting was imitated by artists who created similar paintings of Andromeda in Pompeii.35 The main themes of the Andromeda painting at the Villa Agrippa (fig. 23) are marriage and eroticism. Upon close observation, it becomes evident that the dragon is spitting something out of its mouth in the direction of Andromeda, which might be understood to be venom or acid. Yet since the dragon so closely resembles a flower, this detail carries the sexual connotation of pollen, and thus has an erotic overtone. Another painting in the same room, Cyclop Polyphemus Courting the Nereid Galatea, underscores this same theme of a monster’s love for a maiden and its aspiration to be united with her, just like Ketos seems to aspire to a union with Andromeda. The Villa Agrippa painting is notable not only for its remarkably high quality and degree of preservation – the work of a master who was likely the best-known painter in the region – but even more so for its commissioner. The house in which this fresco was painted belonged to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (64/62–12 BCE), the closest friend and right-hand man of the Emperor Augustus (63 BCE–14 CE), who was married to Augustus’s daughter Julia Augusta (Julia the Elder, 39 BCE–14 CE).36 Evidence suggests that the imperial princess commissioned these paintings for her resort house and was actively involved in decisions concerning the design, giving rise to a number of questions: Why were these specific myths and scenes chosen? Given the similarity of other frescoes on this theme in Pompeii and its surroundings to the one at Villa Agrippa, perhaps Julia’s commission was made in response to the rising popularity of the Andromeda myth? Or did the popularity of this theme stem from its appearance in the imperial lounge? Although these 34 Phillips, “Perseus and Andromeda,” pp. 14–15. 35 Peter H. Von Blanckenhagen, “Narration in Hellenistic and Roman Art,” American Journal of Archaeology, 61.1 (January 1957), pp. 78–83; Von Blanckenhagen and Alexander, The Paintings from Boscotrecase, pp. 50–51, nn. 78–79. 36 Lindsay Powell, Marcus Agrippa (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2022).

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questions have no answers, they nevertheless stress the soaring interest in this myth among upper-class Romans.37 At the time when the Andromeda fresco at Villa Agrippa was painted, marriage and fertility were central political concerns for the Roman nobility. These concerns were due to a dearth of military leaders following numerous deaths in battle among members of the Roman elite, as well as to the unprecedented degree of power and liberty attained by upper-class women, which awakened controversy in the context of a highly patriarchal society. Indeed, Julia Augusta herself was accused of sexual promiscuity, and was eventually sentenced to exile by her own father.38 These developments led Augustus to initiate a propaganda campaign stressing the role of women in promoting fertility, as well as the importance of marriages among members of the social elite, as opposed to ones among noblemen and lower-ranking women or even ones who were not Roman citizens.39 As I would like to argue, the reemergence of the theme of Andromeda, accompanied by both the dragon and the wedding/funeral gifts, reflects the growing social debate concerning traditional marriage values. Paintings created in Pompeii during this period also introduced an additional iconographical type that lasted until late antiquity, as best exemplified by the fresco from the House of Dioscuri (fig. 24). 40 The composition focuses on the figures of Andromeda and Perseus and their interaction: Andromeda is about to be liberated, and Perseus is gallantly assisting her in stepping down from the rock to which she was bound. This is a moment of joining hands, physically and metaphorically. Perseus is naked, save for a garment on his back and Hermes’s sandals on his feet. In other paintings of the same type, Perseus sometimes carries his sword, but rarely has Medusa’s head in his possession.41 Andromeda is partly naked, and sometimes exposed as if accidentally. Ketos, meanwhile, is presented as dead or as an icon. Phillips contends that these paintings re copies of a Hellenistic third-century BCE painting by Euanthes (possibly of Tarentine), now lost, which was originally located in an Egyptian temple in Alexandria. He bolsters his claims by referring to 37 Phillips, “Perseus and Andromeda,” p. 3; Jocelyn P. Small, “Visual Copies and Memory,” in Orality, Literacy, Memory in the Ancient Greek and Roman World, ed. Anne Mackay (Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 227–251, particularly pp. 239–241, fig. 9. 38 Cassius Dio, Roman History, trans. Earnest Cary and Herbert Baldwin Foster (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 55.10; Suetonius, “Vita Augusti,” in Lives of the Caesars, trans. J. C. Rolfe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), I: 2.65. 39 For more information about Augustus’s propaganda on the role of women in promoting fertility, see Jane F. Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society (London: Croom Helm, 1986); Milnor, Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus; Barbara Levick, “Women and Law,” and Judith P. Hallett, “Women in Augustan Rome,” in A Companion to Women in the Ancient World, eds. Sharon L. James, and Sheila Dillon (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), pp. 96–106, 372–384. 40 “Andromeda I,” in LIMC, I/2, fig. 69. 41 Ibid., 67–89.

Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa 

Figure 24 – Perseus and Andromeda, 2–25 CE, fresco from house of Dioscuri at Pompeii, National Museum, Naples (No. 8998) © Carole Raddato, public domain, Wikimedia.

medieval astronomy books that depict a composition highly resembling Evanthes’ lost painting. Phillips’s conclusions concerning the astronomical connotation of these paintings seems to be justified. 42 Nevertheless, the iconological connection he makes between the Pompeiian iconographic types and a Campanian red-figured hydria dated to the second quarter of the fourth century BCE, now in the Berlin State Museum, appears questionable. The two Pompeiian types – the one exemplified by the Villa Agripa fresco (fig. 23) and the one exemplified by the House of 42 Phillips, “Perseus and Andromeda,” pp. 3, 16.

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Dioscuri fresco (fig. 24) – seem far removed from one another: the distance between the protagonists in the Villa Agrippa fresco, Ketos’ aliveness, and Andromeda’s outstretched arms stand out in contrast to the intimacy of the couple in the House of Dioscuri fresco, which is represented up close, alongside the neutralized dragon.43 Many floor mosaics preserved from the second century CE depict the iconography of the second Pompeii type, as do various sarcophagi, amulets, bronze plates, and reliefs. Some of these works depict a highly intimate interaction between Andromeda and Perseus, portraying them as seated side by side. This iconography is exemplified by a fresco from the Stabiae at Pompeii, in which the couple is seated together, and Perseus holds Medusa’s head just above Andromeda. This iconographic type probably influenced medieval astronomy books that presented Andromeda as seated. 44 The iconographic changes in this scene give rise to a consideration of the narrative moments highlighted in different cultural and historical contexts and their transformation over time. The chosen narrative underwent a transformation from a communal human scene to one featuring godlike beings, and from a family event to a tête-à-tête. The scene that is represented in the second Pompeii type is an astrological depiction, which forges an analogy between the private and the cosmological spheres: this intimate scene is written in the stars. As noted, the Andromeda myth centers on the theme of marriage – “the good woman” is essentially “the good wife.” This type of woman, who passively accepts her fate, and is worthy of Greece’s greatest hero, who is greatly favored by the gods. Doomed to her tragic fate, Andromeda is a “bride of death,” who is destined to be united with the dragon unless a heroic man arrives to divert the course of her fate. The dragon represents the liminal moment in which a maiden is transformed into a bride, and symbolizes the death of her identity as a girl during the marriage rituals, and her rebirth into her husband’s paterfamilia. Until the second century CE, the iconographic emphasis is on Perseus asking Andromeda’s father’s for permission to marry her – the proper way to procure a good, legitimate wife. 45 The dragon’s symbolic function changes in accordance with the cultural context. As noted, the myth’s basic structure was familiar at least as early as the sixth century BCE, as attested to by the Corinthian amphora (fig. 18), and was recounted in detail in the plays of Sophocles and Euripides. Significantly, however, artistic depictions do 43 “Andromeda I,” in LIMC, I/2, figs. 35, 53, 67–72. 44 Erwin Panofsky and Fritz Saxl, Classical Mythology in Mediaeval Art (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1933), p. 236; Phillips, “Perseus and Andromeda,” p. 18, n. 113. “Andromeda I,” in LIMC, I/2, figs. 97, 103–109, 114, 116. 45 For marriage rituals in the ancient world, see Nancy Demand, Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Classical Greece (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994); Lena Larsson Lovén and Agneta Strömberg, eds., Ancient Marriage in Myth and Reality (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010). Note that the definition of marriage in ancient Greece and Rome is somewhat different than its modern Western definition.

Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa 

not represent the dragon or the dragon-slayer topos until the middle of the fourth century BCE. In Attica, the main focus of the scene was Andromeda, bound and awaiting her death, alongside representations of Perseus asking her father for her hand in marriage. The most informative details in these artistic representations are the wedding/funeral gifts, which symbolize the theme of marriage as a funeral. These signs were altered by the sign of the dragon, which is the messenger of death and challenges the heroic nature of the active male protagonist, while transforming the dragon-slayer from a propaganda image for the good ruler, to a propaganda image for a good man. In conclusion, Andromeda is an example of the second type of woman who encounters a dragon – “the good woman” type. Her relationship with the dragon that desires her threatens her potential union with a male protagonist, who must save her in order to prevent her from dying. In a Greco-Roman context, a girl’s eligibility for marriage precludes a union with the dragon. Perseus arrives heavily armed for the battle with Ketos and is assisted by the gods, so that his victory is ensured. He also has every legitimate right to the girl: the man she was promised to previously did not step up to challenge Ketos. Andromeda is the patriarchal ideal of a good woman: severed from her ancient connection to a divine matriarchal power she passively accepts masculine domination. The exact inversion of this myth is presented in the myth of Perseus and Medusa, which appears as part of the same mythical sequence, thus inviting a comparison between the two women.

Medusa – The Dangerous Woman The myth of Perseus and Medusa, and the visual image of Medusa, have been highly influential since ancient times, and an impressive range of academic studies continues to explore them today. Inconsistencies concerning this myth and its origin have been the subject of investigations in the fields of history, art, archaeology, psychology, anthropology, gender studies, and theater, among others. The present study addresses several different aspects of the myth. Since its scope is far too broad to address here in full, the following section centers on changing visual representations of Medusa. 46 The discussion will address Medusa’s identity as a woman as distinct from her identity as a drakaina – a female dragon – while attending to the meaning of these two identities as both separate and merged within patriarchal culture. The analysis 46 Wilk examines the pervasive appearance of Medusa from ancient to modern times in a large number of cultural contexts worldwide; see Stephen R. Wilk, Medusa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 55–85, 193–224.

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will examine both the alternate representations of Medusa as ugly or beautiful, and the representation of the mythical narrative as opposed to images centering on the decapitated Medusa’s head. In conclusion, I will address the reasons that the stories of Medusa and Andromeda were both included in the myth of Perseus, which leads to an immediate comparison between the two women. The image of Medusa, which is that of a woman fused with a dragon, offers a gateway to an examination of other images of this type, with a focus on the apotropaic aspects of threat and protection. It is the power of this combination, as I argue, that explains the rise of a narrative concerning the decapitation of a powerful female entity and the establishment of male dominance. As told by Gantz, the Perseus and Medusa myth begins with King Polydectes’ wish to marry Perseus’s mother, Danaë, a union to which Perseus objects. Since Polydectes wants to get Perseus out of his way, he hatches a plot. The king invites all his subjects to his palace, asking each to bring a horse as a gift. Since Perseus has no family or estate, he cannot fulfill the king’s request. Polydectes therefore sends him to bring the mortal Gorgon Medusa’s head, a hopeless and fatal task, as Medusa’s gaze turns the living to stone. Perseus, as the son of Zeus, is greatly assisted by the gods: he receives a shield and advice from Athena, a winged hat and sandals from Hermes, a sword (harpe) from Hephaestus, as well as a garment of invisibility and a bag (kibisis) that changes shape and size according to its contents from Hades. These gifts are given to him in some versions of the story by nymphs – probably the Hesperides, who were considered by the scholia of Apollonius to be sisters of the Gorgons and the Graeae. Perseus first has to find Medusa, whose location is known only to the Graeae (Graiae/Graiai), sisters of the Gorgons, who could choose either to protect or reveal their location. The Graeae share one eye and one tooth, which Perseus (with the guidance of Hermes) steals and ransoms in order to extract from them information about the Gorgons’ location: a cave on the border between the world of the dead and the living. Their deadly gaze is their weapon, while condemning them to remain eternally isolated. Of the three Gorgons, only Medusa is mortal. Perseus enters the cave, avoiding the danger of her deadly gaze by using Athena’s shield to reflect his target, and decapitates the sleeping Medusa. The details at this point in the narrative vary. Sometimes Perseus’s hand is guided by Athena or Hermes, but the overall theme is that Perseus had nothing to fear – there was no fight and almost no danger. This is neither honorable nor analogous to dragon-slaying, since Medusa had no opportunity to fight back. Perseus then flees from her Gorgon sisters, Stheno and Euryale. After Medusa is decapitated, the fully grown Chrysaor and Pegasus emerge from her body.47 It is at this point that the story of Andromeda begins. 47 Apollodorus, The Library: 2.4.2; Marjorie Garber and Nancy J. Vickers, eds., The Medusa Reader (New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 25–41. Gantz, Early Greek Myth, I, pp. 304–307; Yael Renan, Goddesses and

Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa 

The main question is, who or what is Medusa? Particularly intriguing is the frontal image of Medusa, as opposed to the profile style most commonly used for her representation in Greek art. There is evidence to support the argument that Medusa, or Gorgo, appeared long before the Archaic Greek period. As noted, some scholars credibly view her lineage as going all the way back to the image of the terrifying Mesopotamian monster Humbaba, whose gaze was similarly deadly, and whose visual representation is also frontal and terrifying, as given expression in the clay demon mask of Humbaba (or Huwawa) from Sippar, dated to 1800–1600 BCE and now in British Museum, London.48 Medusa’s visual representation is considered to have also originated in what are called “lion masks,” dated to the ninth and eighth centuries BCE and found at Tiryns. Several of these masks, especially those found in Sparta, date from the seventh to the fifth centuries BCE. They are very similar to depictions of Medusa’s head, probably bear the same apotropaic meaning, and are therefore considered related.49 Scholars such as Walter Burkert, Ogden, Emily E. Culpepper, Susan R. Bowers, Barbara Baert, and Miriam R. Dexter contend that Medusa is a vestige of a great mother divinity worshiped by earlier matriarchal cultures. Ogden follows Burkert in identifying Medusa’s origin in the Mesopotamian Lamashtu, which developed into the Greek Lamia monster50 – the devourer of children that is also an anguiped – a woman fused with a dragon. Feminist scholars contend that the myth of Perseus and Medusa is an allegorical interpretation of historical events involving the masculine occupation of the Diva Matrix.51 This contention is based on various Heroes: On the Limits of Power (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2001), pp. 71–84 (in Hebrew); Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, pp. 82–96; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 92–104. On the connection of the Hesperides, the Graeae and the Gorgons, see Wilk, Medusa, p. 21; Ogden, Drakōn, p. 98. 48 Clark Hopkins, “Assyrian Elements in the Perseus-Gorgon Story,” American Journal of Archaeology, 38.3 (1934), pp. 341–358; Thalia P. Howe, “The Origin and Function of the Gorgon-Head,” American Journal of Archaeology, 58.3 (1954), pp. 209–221. 49 Martin P. Nilsson, The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1932), pp. 40–41; Jane B. Carter, “The Masks of Ortheia,” American Journal of Archaeology, 91 (1987), pp. 355–383; Neil Forsyth, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 21–43; Françoise Frontisi-Ducroux, Du masque au visage: Aspects de l’identité en Grèce ancienne (Paris: Flammarion, 1995); Wilk, Medusa, pp. 36, 64–65; Roland Tefnin, Les regards l’image des origines jusqu’ à Byzance (Anvers: Fonds Mercator, 2003), pp. 65–108; Ogden, Perseus, p. 35; Miriam R. Dexter, “The Ferocious and the Erotic: ‘Beautiful’ Medusa and the Neolithic Bird and Snake,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 26.1 (Spring 2010), pp. 32–36; Ogden, Drakōn, p. 95. 50 See note 200. 51 Thalia P. Howe, “Gorgo and the Origins of Fear,” Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, 4.3 (1965), pp. 484–494; Emily E. Culpepper, “Ancient Gorgons: A Face for Contemporary Women’s Rage,” Women of Power, 3 (Winter–Spring 1986), pp. 222–224; Burkert, “Oriental and Greek Mythology,” in Interpretations of Greek Mythology, ed. Jan N. Bremmer (London: Routledge, 1988), pp. 26–30; Susan R. Bowers, “Medusa and the Female Gaze,” The National Women’s Studies Association Journal, 2.2 (Spring 1990), pp. 217–235; Wilk, Medusa, p. 25; Dexter, “The Ferocious and the Erotic,” pp. 25–41; Julia Kristeva,

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documents, including one of the earliest examples of Greek writing, Pindar’s poems from the fifth century BCE. This text recounts that Medusa used to be beautiful “after (Perseus was) stealing away the head of the fair-cheeked Medusa”52 and laments her death at the hand of Perseus. Pausanias documents a tale he heard during his travels in the second century BCE in the market square of Argos, where the head of Medusa was rumored to be buried, asserting that Medusa had been an African queen.53 In the first century BCE, Diodorus Siculus, who probably followed the tradition established by Dionysius Skytobrachion, documented a story of the Gorgons as queen-warriors from Africa who had defeated another Amazon tribe but were overthrown by Perseus during Medusa’s rule.54 Hence, it can be assumed that Medusa originated as an ancient and powerful deity, whose severed head functioned as a potent symbol of her disempowerment. This aspect of Medusa as a formerly powerful female was well known during the Greco-Roman period and beyond.55 As I would like to suggest, the Egyptian Great Mother Goddess Hathor, who was discussed in Chapters One and Two as representing one of the earliest associations between divine female powers and snakes, served as another source for representations of Medusa. As noted, Hathor was a fertility goddess, in whose womb the dead incubated as they awaited passage to the world beyond. She also metamorphoses into the horrific lion-headed Sekhmet, the deity that brings destruction and plagues, as well as into the Uraeus cobra that guards the pharaohs.56 Hathor is sometimes represented in a frontal pose, in contrast with the typical Egyptian profile.57 This representational format, together with her connection to birth and resurrection as The Severed Head: Capital Visions (Columbia University Press, 2012), pp. 28–36; Barbara Baert, Caput Johannis in Disco:{Essay on a Man’s Head} (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 133–137; Ogden, Drakōn, p. 91. On Diva Matrix, see Alphonse A. Barb, “Diva Matrix: A Faked Gnostic Intaglio in the Possession of PP Rubens and the Iconology of a Symbol,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 16.3/4 (1953), pp. 193–238; Paul Vandenbroeck, Azetta: Berbervrouwen en hun kunst (Ludion; Gent, 2000). 52 Pindar, The Odes of Pindar, Including the Principal Fragments, trans. and intro. John Sandys (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1937): Pythian, 12.6–26: trans. Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, p. 85: pt. 56. Gepffreu S. Conway translates the word “stealing” as “raped” (Garber and Vickers, The Medusa Reader, p. 15) 53 Pausanias, Description of Greece: 2.21.6. 54 Diodorus Skytobrachion in FGrH, Jacoby: 32.F7; Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History, trans. Russel M. Geer, Bradford C. Welles and Charles H. Oldfather (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014): 3.52, 54–55: trans. George Booth, in Garber and Vickers, The Medusa Reader, pp. 26–29. 55 Edward Phinney, “Perseus’ Battle with the Gorgons,” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 102 (1971), pp. 445–463. 56 For more information on Hathor, see Lana Troy, Patterns of Queenship in Ancient Egyptian Myth and History (Uppsala: Universitet; Stockholm: Almquist and Wiksell International, 1986), pp. 21–25; Alison Roberts, Hathor Rising: The Power of the Goddess in Ancient Egypt (Devon: Northgate, 1995). 57 Tefnin, Les regards de l’image, pp. 65–77.

Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa 

Figure 25 – Medusa with Chrysaor (and Pegasus) with Two Lions, 600–575 BCE, pediment from the temple of Artemis at Corcyra on Corfu, Archaeological Museum of Corfu © Dr.K., public domain, Wikimedia.

well as death and destruction, and her association with cobras and lions, create an overwhelming resemblance to Medusa that cannot be ignored. Another Egyptian god whose image bears mention in this context is the apotropaic and fertility god Bes, the grotesque dwarf god, who is frequently depicted frontally and with an enlarged phallus, sometimes with wings and holding snakes in his hands.58 Interestingly, Medusa is portrayed as bearded in numerous representations, yet her portrayal as a female figure remained consistent. Dexter sees a connection between the Medusa myth and that of the Mesopotamian fertility goddess Inanna, who similarly has wings and snake signs as her attributes, and is also associated with fertility.59 As these earlier precedents reveal, Medusa descends from a lineage of Magna Mater goddesses with the same features, most notably their symbolic connection to the snake and the lion, which were worshipped in the eastern part of the Mediterranean basin and the Near East.60 The typology of the Greek Medusa suggested by Wilhelm H. Roscher in 1896 is still valid today. Roscher’s first type is the Archaic Medusa, as best exemplified by the image from the pediment of the Temple of Artemis at Corcyra on Corfu, dated to the early sixth century BCE (fig. 25): a round frontal face, a gigantic nose and eyes, a swollen tongue that protrudes from her mouth, boar’s teeth, curly hair, and snakes on her shoulders and belt.61 This frightening representation was meant to 58 Veronica Wilson, “The Iconography of Bes with Particular Reference to the Cypriot Evidence,” Levant, 7.1 (1975), pp. 77–103; Howard M. Jackson, “The Meaning and Function of the Leontocephaline in Roman Mithraism,” Numen, 32.1 (July 1985), pp. 17–45, particularly p. 27; James F. Romano, The Bes-image in Pharaonic Egypt, doctoral dissertation (New York: New York University, 1989). 59 Dexter, “The Ferocious and the Erotic,” pp. 32–38. 60 Raffaele Pettazzoni, “Le origini della testa di Medusa,” Bollettino d’Arte, 11.2 (1922), pp. 491–510; Barb, “Diva Matrix,” p. 199; Vandenbroeck, Azetta, p. 119; Wilk, Medusa, pp. 31–32, 62–63; Baert, Caput Johannis in Disco, pp. 133–135; Miriam R. Dexter, “Medusa: Ferocious and Beautiful, Petrifying and Healing: Through the Worlds of the Ancients,” in Re-visioning Medusa: From Monster to Divine Wisdom, eds. Glenys Livingstone and Trista Hendren (2017), pp. 19–50. 61 Wilhelm H. Roscher, Die Gorgonen und Verwandtes (Leipzig: Teubner, 1896); Wilk, Medusa, pp. 31–33.

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protect the temple, as apotropaic (apotropaios) qualities are at the root of Medusa’s representations, persisted for an extremely long time.62 Ogden describes Medusa’s apotropaic function as “fire against fire,” a description also pertaining to dragons, who can both chase away others and be destroyed by creatures originating in dragons, and relates Medusa’s gaze to that of the dragon.63 There is a vast number of Medusa images on temples and on shields and armor, including her well-known representation on statues of Athena; there are also decorative images of her on vase handles (mostly those of burial vases), coins, jewelry, magical amulets (particularly those offering protection for the womb), and more.64 The relief of Medusa from the Temple of Artemis does not present Perseus in the main scene,65 and therefore cannot be considered a narrative image. Medusa is nonetheless positioned in her typical kneeling/running pose (as if trying to run from her fate), which hints to the mythical narrative. She also has two lions flanking her, suggesting she is an animal-mistress – related to older goddesses who were considered animal-mistresses (Potnia Theron), the most famous of which is Artemis.66 Medusa or the Gorgons are already mentioned in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. The myth of Perseus and Medusa, however, is first recounted in Hesiod’s Theogony, while evidently having earlier roots.67 The narrative of the myth exists on vases from the Archaic period, such as a Proto-Attic amphora dated to the second quarter of the seventh century BCE, now in the Archaeological Museum of Eleusis, Attica, which presents Perseus’s flight from the two remaining Gorgons seeking to avenge their dead sister. This is one of the earliest depictions of Gorgons with snakes as belts and snakes coming out of their shoulders, connecting them to the topos of the dragon. Ogden gathers documents that refer to Medusa as a drakaina, and view her as an entirely monstrous being, while underplaying her human and feminine aspects, 62 Wilk, Medusa, p. 42. 63 Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 95–97, 237–240. 64 “Gorgones,” in LIMC, IV/2, figs. 1–291. 65 Perseus is seen in the far-left side of the scene, represented in the iconography in which he slays Medusa. Rainer Mack, “Facing Down Medusa (An Aetiology of the Gaze),” Art History, 25.5 (November 2002), pp. 571–604. 66 Wilk, Medusa, pp. 31–42, 145–160; R. Mack, “Facing Down Medusa”; Bebina Milovanović and Jelena Anđelković-Grašar, “Female Power that Protects: Examples of the Apotropaic and Decorative Functions of the Medusa in Roman Visual Culture from the Territory of the Central Balkans,” Starinar, 67 (2017), pp. 167–182; Kiki Karoglou, Dangerous Beauty: Medusa in Classical Art: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018), pp. 6–22. On the Potnia Theron; see Nota Kourou, “Potnia Figures and Cults in early Iron Age Aegean and Cyprus,” Cahiers du Centre d’Études Chypriotes, 45.1 (2015), pp. 181–199. 67 Homer, The Iliad, trans. A.T. Murray, doctoral dissertation (Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924): 5.741–742, 11.36–37, The Odyssey: 11.633–635; Hesiod, “Theogony,” in Hesiod, ed. and trans. Glenn W. Most (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018), I: 270–294. Watkins, How to Kill a Dragon; Dexter, “Medusa,” pp. 20–22.

Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa 

and he analyzes the fight against her as one of many examples of combat with dragons.68 Nonetheless, even at this early stage, when Medusa was still represented as hideous, sometimes even bearded, it is clear that she is human and female. On the Proto-Attic amphorae, the Gorgons are depicted with wings, suggesting a Greek adaptation of the ancient theme of the winged serpent. This liminal image fuses chthonic and heavenly symbolic elements, forming a composite symbol of protection from above and below with cosmological implications. These united symbols, in association with feminine elements, indicate a Diva Matrix, a Great Mother goddess.69 Medusa’s head, adorned with serpentine hair and flanked by wings, similarly constitutes a liminal symbol that represents this form of ultimate protection. A narrative scene portrayed during the same period on a Boeotian relief pithos in the Musée du Louvre depicts Perseus decapitating a Centaurus-Medusa, while looking away in fear of her gaze.70 This image links Medusa with yet another sign – that of the horse. Ogden points out that this sign forges a connection between Medusa and Poseidon, alluding to Hesiod’s description of Poseidon and Medusa as having intercourse, though vague, scene in Hesiod, and to Medusa’s rape scene in Ovid’s description.71 A black-figure Attic bowl dated to the late fifth BCE century, now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, presents Medusa running toward Poseidon, stressing the connection between the two. The birth of Pegasus is also depicted on the other side of this vase. Another depiction of the birth of Pegasus was painted in the second half of the fifth century BCE by the Diosphos Painter on a white-ground Attic bilingual, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, which depicts Perseus fleeing while Pegasus emerges from Medusa’s decapitated body.72 Stephen R. Wilk follows Roscher’s description of the middle or transitional period in the Medusa typology, in which Medusa is still grotesque, yet her eyes are not as bulging, her tongue is not as long, and she appears somewhat less hideous.73 In the context of the current discussion, the transitional type is important in terms of its engagement in a more elaborate narrative. Medusa is sometimes shown as slain by Perseus and Hermes, as in the Attic olpe (jug) by Amasis in the British Museum, London, or with the assistance of Athena, as exemplified by the metope from Temple C at Silenus (fig. 26). Perseus’s reliance on assistance from the gods is also mentioned in the literary sources, but is amplified in artistic representations. The sixth century BCE was characterized by bold artistic depictions that present 68 Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 92–98. 69 See note 51. 70 Wilk, Medusa, pp. 36–37. 71 Hesiod, Theogony: 278–279; Ovid, Methamorphoses, 4.793–803. Ogden, Perseus, 35–36. 72 Gisela M. A. Richter, “Perseus and Medusa a White Attic Lekythos,” Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2.5 (1907), pp. 82–83. 73 Wilk, Medusa, p. 33.

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Figure 26 – Perseus Decapitating Medusa with Athena, ca. 550 BCE, limestone metope from temple C (for Apollo) at Silenus, National Archaeological Museum, Palermo © Codex, public domain, Wikimedia.

Medusa while still alive, despite the fact that she was greatly feared.74 The Berlin Painter vase in Munich’s State Collections of Antiquities, created in the early fifth century BCE, is one example of an image in which Medusa is portrayed as alive and depicted in the moment of kneeling-running as she tries to escape her fate; Medusa is seen on one side of the vase, while Perseus appears on the other. Although each character stands alone, the round, circular structure of the vase is important, as Perseus could either be chasing Medusa or fleeing one of her Gorgon sisters, which suggests that Medusa might be still alive.75 The beginning of the fifth century BCE marks a transformation to the image of a beautiful Medusa. The most significant image of this type is considered to be Phidias’s Head of Medusa, which decorated the shield of the Athena Parthenos statue in the Acropolis of Athens, and is referred to as “Medusa Rondanini” (fig. 5). From that point onward, Medusa was depicted as both grotesque and beautiful, and her snake hair became her attribute.76 74 Kathryn Topper, “Perseus, the Maiden Medusa and the Imagery of Abduction,” Hesperia: Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 76.1 (January–March 2007), pp. 73–105. 75 Jocelyn M. Woodward, Perseus: A Study in Greek Art and Legend (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1937), pp. 57–59, fig. 16. 76 On “A Head of Drakontes,” see Pindar in Pythian: 10.46–48. Adolf Furtwängler, Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture, ed. and trans. N. Oikonomides (London: Dent, 1914), pp. 156–161; Adolf Furtwängler, Ausführliches

Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa 

Although the artistic evidence presents Medusa as beautiful only from the fifth century BCE on, Daniel Gershenson shows that the Gorgon was always perceived as both grotesque and beautiful, even in Indo-European literature.77 Dexter emphasizes Poseidon’s attraction toward Medusa in Hesiod’s account, basing her case on Friedrich Solmsen’s note that the phrase “soft meadow” is sometimes a reference to female genitals.78 Julia Kristeva further explores this issue, while suggesting that Medusa is an emblem of the female vulva, emblemizing both the attraction towards it and the fear of it. Medusa is thus a dragon, but also a woman.79 Ovid is the first to specifically narrate Medusa’s metamorphosis from beautiful to grotesque, but his story may have roots in an earlier age. This artistic shift highlights the historical moment in which Medusa was conceptualized as simultaneously horrific and erotic.80 Ovid’s description of Medusa as human has earlier echoes on the Polygnotos Painter’s Attic pelike, dated to 450–440 BCE (fig. 27), in which Medusa is similarly presented as human, with wings as her only attribute, and is only identified due to her depiction alongside Perseus. On this Attic pelike, Perseus is holding Medusa in the typical hair-grasp iconography, also exemplified by an Apollonian relief in Bonn’s Academic Art Museum. The Polygnotos Painter’s painting of Medusa is exceptional in that Medusa is entirely human, and has no demonic features. She is presented as a victim, which brings the viewer emotionally closer to her tragedy. Significantly, the gesture of hair-pulling was typically used in representations of rape, such as that of Cassandra.81 Another depiction of Medusa, identifiable only by her wings and the frontal representation of her face, appears on an Attic Hydria by the Nausicaa Painter in the Virginia Museum, which is dated to the same period as Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, ed. Wilhelm H. Roscher (Hildesheim: Alms, 1965–1977), I, p. 1724; Ernst Buschor, Medusa Rondanini (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1958); Martin Robertson, A History of Greek Art (London: Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. 313–314; Evelyn B. Harrison, “‘Alkamenes’ Sculptures for the Hephaisteion: Part I, the Cult Statues,” American Journal of Archaeology, 81.2 (Spring 1977), pp. 162–175; Janer D. Belson, “The Medusa Rondanini: A New Look,” American Journal of Archaeology, 84.3 (July 1980), pp. 373–378; Ogden, Drakōn, p. 96. “Gorgones,” in LIMC, IV/1, pp. 324–325. Janer D. Belson proposes an alternative timeline, dating this change to the end of the fifth century BCE until the beginning of the Hellenistic period; see Belson, ‘The Medusa Rondanini’. Snake-haired Gorgons already existed before Medusa Rondanini; see “Gorgones,” in LIMC, IV/2, fig. 36. 77 Daniel Gershenson, “The Beautiful Gorgon and Indo-European Parallels,” Mankind Quarterly, 29.4 (1989), pp. 373–390. 78 Hesiod, Hesiodi Theogonia Opera et dies, Scutum, ed. Friedrich Solmsen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970): 270–283. Dexter, “The Ferocious and the Erotic,” p. 27, also n. 11. 79 Kristeva, The Severed Head, pp. 28–36. 80 Ovid, Methamorphoses: 4.793–803. 81 Joan B. Connelly, “Narrative and Image in Attic Vase Painting: Ajax and Kassandra at the Trojan Palladion,” in Narrative and Event in Ancient Art, ed. Peter J. Holliday (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 88–129; Topper, “Perseus, the Maiden Medusa, and the Imagery of Abduction.”

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Figure 27 – Polygnotos Painter, Perseus, Medusa and Athena, 450–440 BCE, Attic red-figure pelike, Metropolitan Museum, New York (No. 45.11.1) © Met, public domain.

the Polygnotos Painter’s Attic pelike. On this vessel, Medusa’s fertility is emphasized by the tree that grows from her body while she sleeps. These paintings stress the current claim that Medusa was consistently perceived as a woman first, and only secondly as a drakaina. In these unique fifth century BCE images of Medusa as a

Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa 

woman, she still has wings, which echo Perseus’s winged hat and sandals, yet she has no reptilian features.82 Given the vast amount of visual evidence concerning Medusa, it is surprising that so few of her representations depict the mythical narrative. In the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, vase paintings present the moment after her decapitation. One example is the Pan Painter’s Attic hydria in the British Museum, London, dated to the f irst quarter of the f ifth BCE, in which Athena appears to have speared Medusa, while her head is simultaneously depicted in Perseus’s bag. Another popular iconography depicts Perseus presenting Medusa’s head to Athena, as seen in the Tarporley Painter’s bell-krater in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, dated to the first quarter of the fourth century BCE. A white-ground Attic bilingual by the Diosphos Painter, now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, presents another narrative moment, in which Pegasus is being born while Perseus flees.83 The most salient theme that is recurrently repeated in this visual iconography is the powerful divine protection afforded to Perseus, with both Athena and Hermes watching over him as he slays Medusa. This iconography is also depicted by the Polygnotos Painter (fig. 27) and the Nausicaa Painter, among others. These depictions of the divine assurance for Medusa’s successful slaughter and the iconic Medusa’s head reflect the fear of Medusa’s image, clearly communicating the message that she must die.84 Ovid’s Metamorphoses is the only source that elaborates the story of Medusa’s transformation from a beautiful girl into a grotesque monster. Ovid’s Medusa was originally a beautiful young girl, with great emphasis on her gorgeous golden hair. She was a priestess of Athena, hence sworn to chastity. Poseidon, who is taken by her beauty, rapes her in the Temple of Athena. Athena, enraged by the defilement of her sanctuary, chooses to punish Medusa through her metamorphosis into a grotesque creature. She turns her beautiful hair into venomous snakes, and transforms her beautiful countenance into a hideous, grotesque face, giving her a gaze that turns every living being into stone.85 This story, with its emphasis on Medusa’s origin as a beautiful human girl, and on ancient concepts of chastity and rape, underscores the danger that lurks in the encounter between a sacred snake-mistress and a sexual event (considering Athena Parthenos’ metamorphoses as the oikouros ophis).86 82 Topper, “Perseus, the Maiden Medusa, and the Imagery of Abduction.” 83 Richter, “Perseus and Medusa”; Karoglou, Dangerous Beauty, pp. 6–22. 84 Françoise Frontisi-Ducroux, “Andromeda et la naissance du corail,” Mythes Grecs Au Figuré, S (1996), pp. 135–165. 85 Ovid, Metamorphoses: 4.793–803. 86 Ogden, Drakōn, p. 203.

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Medusa poses contradictions that cannot exist within patriarchal GrecoRoman culture, and therefore must be exiled or killed. She is a woman with sacred knowledge – accessible only to virgins – yet she has experienced sexual penetration and hence has access to a totally different order of knowledge, that of fertility – making her an example of the holy-defiled type. Her knowledge of both worlds renders her unbelievably powerful, capable of generating life yet simultaneously deadly; even after her death, she can still kill with a single look, and her blood can heal or create life, but also take it. Her influence continues to extend to everything that comes in contact with her. In contrast to Ogden’s approach, she represents female consciousness, memory, and awareness, and is emblematic of the generative nature of female fertility. She is merged with the dragon, yet is not entirely a drakaina. Her grotesque image thus centers on her hybridity, which combines two seemingly opposite entities, a beautiful maiden and a monster. This combination is reflected by her access to opposite spheres of knowledge; sacred knowledge and sexual knowledge concerning fertility, which renders her so extremely powerful that she is capable of generating life from death – her children spring from her decapitated neck and her blood turns into living beings, as well as of imposing death on the living by transforming them into stone. The fact that Medusa was not entirely a monster, but a fusion of a woman with a dragon, makes her physically and metaphorically petrifying – simultaneously sacred and desecrated.87 The idea that although Medusa must die, her head keeps on living, was widely represented. A mosaic from Piraeus (fig. 28) and a relief dated to 130 CE in the Naples National Archaeological Museum, which appears on the shield of Hadrian’s statue (76–138 CE), both portray Medusa’s head as charged with powerful, protective powers. Indeed, Medusa’s head was one of the most popular symbols in Greco-Roman art. Many small objects bearing images of it functioned as magic fertility amulets from the Hellenistic period up to the late medieval and early modern periods.88 This fact does not contradict the cultural fear of her image, for apotropaios invite opposite reactions toward the same image. This principle is at the heart of the dragon’s image as analyzed throughout this book – rendering it simultaneously 87 On the healing quality of Medusa’s blood, see Apollodorus, The Library: 3.10.3. Philip Mayerson, Classical Mythology in Literature, Art, and Music (Lexington, MA: Xerox, 1971), pp. 131–132; Bowers, “Medusa and the Female Gaze,” p. 222; Kristeva, The Severed Head, pp. 31–33. 88 Milovanović and Anđelković-Grašar, “Female Power that Protects.” On fertility amulets featuring Medusa’s head, see Monique Halm-Tisserant, “Le Gorgoneion, embléme d’Athéna: Introduction du motif sur le bouclier et l’égide,” Revue archéologique (1986), pp. 245–278; Christopher A. Faraone, “Text, Image and Medium: The Evolution of Graeco-Roman Magical Gemstones,” in ‘Gems of Heaven’: Recent Research on Engraved Gemstones in Late Antiquity, c. AD 200–600, eds. Chris Entwistle and Noël Adams (London: British Museum, 2011), pp. 50–61, particularly p. 50.

Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa 

Figure 28 – Head of Medusa, second century CE, mosaic floor from Piraeus, Athens Archaeological Museum, Athens © Jebulon, public domain, Wikimedia.

benevolent and malicious. From the end of the third century BCE onward, Medusa appears only rarely in a narrative context, as in a second century CE sarcophagus from Sopianae in the Hungarian National Museum, Budapest.89 Yet while narrative depictions of her vanished, the emblematic image of her head became highly popular. To conclude, the image of Medusa constitutes a paradox, in which the tale of a former goddess or Amazon queen defeated in battle is analogous to the figure of a sacred woman who has been defiled. Artistic evidence reveals her gradual transformation from a horrendous creature into a beautiful figure, whose femininity is accentuated. The visual narrative of Medusa, introduced in the fifth century BCE, highlighted the assistance of the gods to Perseus, the passive and helpless position 89 “Gorgones,” in LIMC, IV/1, pp. 312–313, IV/2, figs. 299–303.

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of Medusa, and the flight of Perseus. In early Greek art, the represented narrative is thus far removed from that of a heroic dragon slayer. The unusual iconography depicts the pulling of the maiden’s hair, which hints at rape and humanizes Medusa. Narrative images of the Medusa myth were almost completely eliminated during the Roman Imperial period, while the image of her head became a widely prevalent visual motif. I suggest that this shift was directly influenced by the social and cultural negotiation of the power of images in Roman culture, as well as the great appreciation of dragons during this period. Since the presentation of Medusa as alive was understood to constitute an actual threat to the beholder, the image of her head was visually portrayed for protective purposes, and her story could be verbally told, but her visual image as a living being came to be considered far too dangerous. As the above analysis has revealed, Medusa stands for powerful aspects of female identity that represented a violation of masculine dominance, and thus must die in order to be controlled. Her visual representation thus served as a didactic tool within patriarchal culture, indicating that any deviation from its norms would not be tolerated. In this manner, Medusa does not only deter malevolent forces coming from outside the social order, but also protects against deviations from within it.90

The Permitted Versus the Forbidden Woman Perseus is the prototypical Greek hero and an emblem of male identity, positioned between Medusa and Andromeda. This position in relation to two mythical female figures associated with dragons serves to elucidate the meaning of the motif of the woman and the dragon in the Greco-Roman cultural context. Perseus interacts with two opposite types of women: Andromeda, “the good woman,” is passively bound to either marriage or death, which are one and the same. The dragon represents her impending death, while striving for a union with her. The union with the dragon will sanctify Andromeda, yet will require her to be sworn to chastity and to refrain from sexual intercourse. The other type of female figure is Medusa – the defiled woman, who was also described in Ovid’s myth as a holy woman who was sworn to chastity as the priestess of the most important and chaste dragon-goddess – Athena/ Minerva, yet is sexually violated and becomes exposed to the contradictory aspects

90 For examples of the educational role of female monsters in ancient Greece, see Sarah Iles Johnston, “Defining the Dreadful: Remarks on the Greek Child-Killing Demon,” in Ancient Magic and Ritual Power, eds. Marvin Meyer and Paul Mirecki (Leiden: Brill, 1995), pp. 361–387.

Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa 

of knowledge, thus exerting a petrifying power. This figure didactically indicates which type of women was suitable for marriage, and which was forbidden.91 The contrast between these two types of women is further elaborated through the symbolic role of hair, which plays an explicit role in the story of Medusa, yet is also implicitly alluded to in the story of Andromeda. The importance of hair as symbolic of a woman’s moral values is similarly accentuated in the story of the Maenads, whose loose hair represents wildness and sexual promiscuity.92 The anthropologist Gananath Ogeyesekere posits that snaky hair or “Medusa’s hair,” as he calls it, was a way for a woman to position herself on the fringes of society and challenge its order in modern times.93 Molly M. Levine’s semiotic investigation of the language of hair in ancient Greco-Roman cultures reveals how the physicality of hair – the lively and vital appearance of dead cells – made it a symbol of death within life and of life within death. As she argues, wild, unbound hair was a symbol of the wilderness and the danger lurking outside the order of civilization, and was associated with wild nature, particularly trees and forests. By contrast, bound or cut hair was metonymically connected to the gendered concept of marriage as withholding power from women.94 91 Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 195–198. 92 Mark W. Edwards, “Representation of Maenads on Archaic Red-Figure Vases,” Journal of Hellenic Studies, 80 (January 1960), pp. 78–87; Eva C. Keuls, “Male-Female Interaction in Fifth-Century Dionysiac Ritual as Shown in Attic Vase Painting,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 55 (1984), pp. 287–297; Lori-Anne Touchette, The Dancing Maenad Reliefs: Continuity and Change in Roman Copies (London: University of London, Institute of Classical Studies, 1995). 93 Gananath Obeyesekere, Medusa’s Hair: An Essay on Personal Symbols and Religious Experience (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981). 94 Euripides, Les Bacchantes, trans., intro. and text. Jeanne Roux (Lyon: Université de Lyon, 1970–1972): 150; Aristophanes, “Lysistrata,” in TrGF, Snell: 1308–1313. William H. D. Rouse, Greek Votive Offerings (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1902), pp. 240–249; Charles Berg, The Unconscious Significance of Hair (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1951); Richard B. Onians, The Origins of European Thought About the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time, and Fate (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1951), p. 231, n. 1; Edmund Leach, “Magical Hair,” Man: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 88 (1958), pp. 147–168; James Redfield, Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hector (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), pp. 181–182; Albert Henrichs, “Greek Maenadism from Olympias to Messalina,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 82 (1978), pp. 121–160, particularly p. 157, n. 113; Obeyesekere, Medusa’s Hair; William B. Tyrrell, Amazons: A Study in Athenian Mythmaking (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), p. 74; Walter Burkert, Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical, trans. John Raffan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 70, n. 29; Christopher R. Hallpike, “Social Hair,” Man: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 4.2 (1987), pp. 256–264; Maud W. Gleason, “The Semiotics of Gender: Physiognomy and Self Fashioning in the Second Century C.E.,” in Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World, eds. David M. Halperin, John J. Winkler, and Froma I. Zeitlin, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 389–415; Molly M. Levine, “The Gender Grammar of Ancient Mediterranean Hair,” in Off With Her Head!: The Denial of Women’s Identity in Myth, Religion, and Culture, eds. Howard Eilberg-Schwartz and Wendy Doniger (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 76–130; Jennifer Larson, Greek Heroine Cults (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), p. 73,

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The ancient Greek practice of cutting the hair of a bride on her wedding95 may be understood as a symbolic parallel to the slaughtering of the dragon in narratives concerning “the bride of death.” Just as mythical female protagonists had to be separated from the dragon, so Greek women had to be ritually separated from their hair, which was sometimes sacrificed to a goddess of youth such as Athena or Artemis. Ending her connection to these goddesses symbolized a woman’s transformation from a virgin into a bride, and her parting with her former identity. In this sense, the mythical slaying of the dragon that changes the faith of the woman is parallel to the cutting of the hair, which symbolizes the moment in which her identity is transformed. “The good wife” in ancient Greece was represented with her hair tied or covered, whereas “the dangerous woman” was represented with loose hair.96 Thus, whereas Andromeda is a “good bride” who’s hair is about to be cut, as a semiotic sublimation of the cutting of her head, Medusa is the dangerous woman whose wild snake locks maintain their power even after her head is severed from her body, in a symbolic analogy to the cutting of the bride’s hair.97 An examination of the overall structure of the mythical narratives centered on Perseus, revolve around the issue of marriage: Danaë’s father, Acrisius, prevents his daughter from marrying by imprisoning her; King Polydectes wants to marry Danaë, but is blocked by Perseus; Perseus asks Andromeda’s father for permission to marry her; Andromeda as the “bride of death”; Medusa’s head petrifies both Phineus – the failed husband to be – and Polydectes, so that she literally functions as a protector against certain kinds of marriages. I contend that the mythical narratives centered on Perseus explore the range of female behaviors in Greco-Roman cultures, while creating a comparison between women who entertain legal, legitimate interactions with a man in contrast to women whose very existence is delegitimized and excluded from the social order. In this context, Perseus is charged with performing two patriarchal tasks: slaying the ultimate feminine threat – an overly powerful holy woman who has been desecrated (Medusa), and wedding a chaste maiden (Andromeda) to prevent her death (Andromeda). cf. 120; Elizabeth Bartman, Portraits of Livia: Imaging the Imperial Woman in Augustan Rome (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 32–39; Matthew Dillon, Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 215–216. 95 Redfield, Nature and Culture, pp. 181–182. 96 “Anthologia Palatina,” in The Greek Anthology, Paton: 6.59, 276–277; Julius Pollux, Pollucis onomasticon, ed. Erich Bethe (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1998), I: 3.38; “Archilochus,” in ed. and trans. Douglas E. Gerber, Greek Iambic Poetry: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): fr. 326 (as a sacrifice to Hera); Levine, “The Gender Grammar of Ancient Mediterranean Hair,” pp. 92–93, particularly n. 14. 97 Levine, “The Gender Grammar of Ancient Mediterranean Hair,” pp. 82–93.

Eligible Wives and Monstrous Women: Andromeda and Medusa 

As the artistic evidence discussed in this chapter reveals, for about two centuries during the Hellenistic era, visual imagery represented the actual battle between Perseus and Ketos, while only earlier art presented Medusa’s actual slaughter. During the Roman imperial period, visual representations of combat with dragons becomes almost none existent, as they are portrayed as distant, dead, or merely as iconic emblems. Medusa’s face will receive further attention in Chapter Five as a symbol of protection for childbirth and infants, a Greek tradition that continued into medieval Europe.98

98 Campbell Bonner, Studies in Magical Amulets: Chiefly Graeco-Egyptian (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1950), p. 161; Jeffrey Spier, “Medieval Byzantine Magical Amulets and Their Tradition,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 56 (1993), pp. 25–62; Naama Vilozny, “Figure and Image in Magic and Popular Art: Between Babylonia and Palestine during the Roman and Byzantine Periods,” doctoral dissertation, (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2010), pp. 246–249 (in Hebrew); Marina Belozerskaya, Medusa’s Gaze: The Extraordinary Journey of the Tazza Farnese (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

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4. Medea – The Holy Woman and the Witch Abstract: Medea is a multilayered persona, whose myth commences in Colchis. She was originally a holy woman who betrays both the holy dragon and her father, and flees with Jason; in Iolcus she reveals her witch persona as a healer and a murderer; in Corinthus, her rage leads to a killing spree that ends with her slaughtering her own children; in Athens, she attempts to compel the king to murder his own unrecognized son. By examining these myths in conjunction with artistic representations of Medea, I reveal the complex relations between this heroine and dragons, while highlighting significant themes embedded in artistic images – including redemption, residues of child-sacrifice rituals, and apotheosis. This chapter focuses on the bias against powerful women associated with dragons. Key Words: Medea, Jason, Golden Fleece, Hesperides, redemption, bias, witch, King Pelias

As the previous chapters have demonstrated, the union of a woman, and more specifically of a virgin, with a male or female dragon is imbued with a sacred character and an oracular function. As the following discussion will reveal, a full understanding of this motif requires an exploration of ancient representations of female witches, and of their particular allegiance with dragons. The comparative study of the myths of Medusa and Andromeda related them to the discourse on female virginity and fertility in patriarchal Greco-Roman cultures, while exploring their function as carriers of cultural values and morals in the context of both ritual and history. The current chapter further elaborates on these themes by turning to the intriguing and unsettling myth of Medea and its visual representations. As I will demonstrate, these representations are concerned both with the extraordinary ability of powerful female figures to inflict harm, relating it to the stereotypical concept of the witch in antiquity and to the bias against powerful women, as well as to the historically gendered role of women as specializing in herbs and healing potions.1 1 My definition of “bias” follows Madeleine M. Henry, Prisoner of History: Aspasia of Miletus and Her Biographical Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).

Khalifa-Gueta, S., The Woman and the Dragon in Premodern Art. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023. doi 10.5117/9789463723572_ch04

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The Medea myth offers a unique case study, since her figure is depicted in diverse ways and with contradicting features. Her representations reflect the dissonance inherent in the motif of the woman and the dragon, treading a fine line between the holy woman who can heal, communicate with dragons, perform magic, and make prophecies, and the witch who murders, betrays, steals, and cons. These aspects of Medea’s character are closely interconnected, and further point to a set of restrictive family-related values and taboos pertaining to “the good woman.” In the current chapter, Medea is considered as a unique manifestation of dualistic stereotypes of women in relation to attributes including the dragon and the tree, feeding the dragon, pregnancy and childbirth, the death of children, the tripod, and (yet again) the issue of women’s hair. Ogden identifies Medea as “a Mistress of Serpents” who is consistently associated with dragons. In Greek mythology, she is related to goddesses such as Hera, Artemis, and Hecate, and is described as knowledgeable about herbs, a specialist in the art of healing, and a powerful witch. Even prior to her transformation, therefore, Medea was never a simple princess, and the focus on her treacherous nature underscores the fear of her power, alluding to historical female figures in positions of exceptional power in patriarchal society.2 Medea thus represents an instance of the type I define as the holy-defiled woman, who collaborates with dragons and is defined as dangerous, and is thus similar to Medusa, while being represented as more human, with an emphasis on her witchery and holy characteristics. When a woman had excessive power within patriarchal Greco-Roman culture and was viewed as intimidating by a group of upper-class men, she was frequently associated with Medea, whose wisdom and proficiency rendered her dangerous. Men appropriated the Medea myth to ascribe to these women a prototypically treacherous character, applying what I refer to here as the “Medea bias,” which appears between the lines of these women’s biographers, and is crucial to an understanding of this study of a whole. Particularly interesting are Marcus Tullius Cicero’s reference to Clodia Metelli (95 or 94 BCE–date of death unknown), the sister of Clodius Pulcher (93–52 BCE), whom he directly compares to Medea. Marilyn B. Skinner identifies the mythic archetype of the murderous-lusting wife in a position of power as Cicero’s invention.3 By contrast, this chapter suggests that Medea’s affiliation with 2 Daniel Ogden, Night’s Black Agents: Witches, Wizards and the Dead in the Ancient World (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2008), pp. 27–38; Daniel Ogden, “Medea as Mistress of Dragons,” in Contesti magici, eds. Marina Piranomonte and Francisco Marco Simón (Rome: De Luca Editori d’Arte, 2012), pp. 267–277, particularly pp. 245–257. 3 Marcus Tullius Cicero, “For Marcus Caelius,” in Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, trans. Charles Duke Yonge, intro. Charles Hermann Ohly (New York: Colonial Press, 1900): 8.19. Katherine A. Geffcken, Comedy in the Pro Caelio: With an Appendix on the In Clodium et curionem (Leiden: Brill, 1973), pp. 15–17; Mary R. Lefkowitz, Heroines and Hysterics (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981), pp. 32–40; Marilyn B. Skinner,

Medea – The Holy Woman and the Witch 

the motif of the woman and the dragon related her to the murderous woman topos long before Cicero.

The Myth of Medea Throughout the Greco-Hellenistic and Roman era, the myth of Medea appeared in many related variations, which extended over a wide geographical area. In the introduction to her monumental collection of essays, Medea, Sarah Iles Johnston notes that Medea’s persona is full and complex, in contrast to the typically onedimensional female figures populating the ancient Greek imagination. Medea is both a healer and a murderer; in one place she is hated and exiled, while in another she is a goddess. Moreover, her contradictory nature may be related to the similarly dual character of the dragon, which has been shown in the previous chapters to be simultaneously related to the generative and destructive nature of the Great Mother.4 The myth of Medea contains various narrative scenarios, and the following outline builds on Gantz’s summary of it.5 The story begins with Pelias, King of Iolcus, who is Jason’s (or Iason’s) uncle. In most variations, Pelias seizes the throne unjustly from Jason’s father, and in some cases is proclaimed the rightful king. King Pelias is given a prophecy that a man with one sandal (monosandal) will usurp him. When he encounters Jason, who wears only one sandal, he does not recognize him as his nephew. Filled with fear, the king dispatches Jason to bring him the Golden Fleece from Colchis, a journey from which Pelias does not expect him to return. Jason is sent on the Argo – a vessel which, as Homer informs us in the Odyssey, “is of interest to everyone,”6 since it carries the greatest Greek heroes including Hercules, Kastor, and Orpheus, among others, who are all known as Argonauts.7

“Clodia Metelli,” Transactions of the American Philological Association, 113 (1983), pp. 273–287, particularly p. 286, n. 32; Fritz Graf, “Medea, the Enchantress from Afar: Remarks on a Well-Known Myth,” in Medea: Essays on Medea in Myth, Literature, Philosophy, and Art, eds. James J. Clauss and Sarah Iles Johnston, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 22. 4 Sarah Iles Johnston, “Introduction,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 5–7. 5 Robert Graves, The Greek Myths (London: Cassell, 1955), II, pp. 232–259; Wilhelm H. Roscher, ed., Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie (Hildesheim: Olms, 1965–1977), II/2, pp. 2482–2514, II/1, pp. 59–90; Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), I, pp. 340–373. 6 Homer, The Odyssey, ed. Martin Litchfield West, trans. Samuel Butler (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017): 12.70. 7 Hesiod, “Theogony,” in Hesiod, ed. and trans. Glenn W. Most (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018): 993–994. Graf, “Medea, the Enchantress from Afar,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, p. 30.

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Jason appears as a stranger in Colchis, where the local King Aietes has been warned of such an arrival by a prophecy. Dionysius Scytobrachion’s variation states that when Aietes receives this prophecy, he charges his daughter, the princess Medea, with sacrificing to Artemis every stranger that comes into Colchis. Nonetheless, she chooses to spare the Argonauts. In other variations, Jason arrives in Colchis intent on stealing the fleece by cunning. All variations agree that Aphrodite assists Jason by causing Medea to fall in love with him.8 The most common version of the story asserts that Jason asks the king for the Golden Fleece, which Aiete has no intention of giving him; he therefore asks Jason to perform several, very likely deadly, tasks. The first task is to harness ferocious fire-breathing bulls to plow a field. In order for Jason to prevail at this task, Medea gives him a lotion made of herbs to cover his body and protect him against the bulls’ fire. Jason’s following task is to sow the teeth of the dragon that Cadmos had killed, and to then fight the fully armed soldiers generated by the teeth. Apollonius writes that Jason threw a stone among the soldiers, thus leading them to fight one other. Eventually, Jason is allowed to take the Golden Fleece if he can overcome the Colchis dragon that guards it.9 Pindar writes that Jason overcame the dragon by himself.10 This variation is supported by an early Attic column-crater painting dated to 470–460 BCE, now in the Metropolitan Museum, and by three Etruscan artifacts dated to the fourth century BCE, including a Carnelian scarab and a green glass ring-stone, both in National Library of France, Paris. This visual tradition persisted in Rome, particularly on small objects.11 Fritz Graf compares the story of Jason combating the dragon 8 Graf, “Medea, the Enchantress from Afar,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 22, 28, 30 9 For literary sources of the Medea myth, see Pindar, Pythian: 4.242–247; Dionysius Scytobrachion in Felix Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (FGrH) (Leiden: Brill, 1923): 4.40–48; Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History: 4.46; “Orphic Argonautica,” in Jason and the Argonauts Through the Ages, trans. Jason Colavito (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2014): 887–888: www.argonauts-book.com/ orphic-argonautica.html. Daniel Ogden, Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 78–93; Daniel Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers in the Classical and Early Christian Worlds: A Sourcebook (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 125–133. For sources that record Jason directly asking the king for the golden fleece, see Apollonios of Rhodes, Argonautica, ed. and trans. William H. Race (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014): 3.597–600, 1176–1190; Herodorus of Heraclea, Early Greek Mythography, Robert L. Fowler (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000): 31f52; Scholia to Apollonios, “Naupaktia,” in Further Greek Epigrams, Page: fr. 6–8. 10 Pindar, Pythian: 4.245–250. 11 “Iason,” in Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae (LIMC) (Zurich: Artemis, 1981–1999), V/2, figs. 22–35; Gisela M. A. Richter, “Jason and the Golden Fleece,” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 30.4 (April 1935), pp. 86–88; Gisela M. A. Richter, “Jason and the Golden Fleece,” American Journal of Archaeology, 39.2 (April–June 1935), pp. 182–184; Mata Vojatzi, Frühe Argonautenbilder (Würzburg: Konrad Triltsch, 1982), pp. 87–91.

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with that of Hercules defeating the sea monster, because Jason was represented as disgorged by the dragon, as depicted on the Douris Cup (fig. 3).12 However, Euripides’ play Medea, written in the fifth century BCE, already presents the idea that the dragon was subdued by Medea, who took upon herself to help Jason.13 Latin sources from the first century BCE onward refer to Medea as the main and most trusted keeper of the dragon. She is described as feeding a sleeping potion (or poison) to the dragon in order to subdue it; this variation of the myth appears in vase painting from the beginning of the fourth century BCE, and may have even earlier origins. According to these sources, Medea was the mistress of the dragon, and that is why it trusted her and let her approach it. A seventh-century CE source proves that the variation in which Jason killed the dragon by himself also endured.14 In return for her help in obtaining the Golden Fleece, Jason takes Medea with him as he flees Colchis. An early version included a cruel episode in which the couple kidnaps Medea’s younger brother Apsyrtus, kills him, and dismembers his body. They then throw his organs into the ocean, thinking that King Aietes, who was pursuing them, will slow down in order to gather his son’s organs and give him a proper burial. Interestingly, in later versions Apsyrtus is older, and becomes the prime pursuer of Jason and Medea.15 The next episode of the myth takes place in Iolcus, when Jason returns with the Golden Fleece yet is not given the kingdom. In some variations, the kingdom was not rightfully his. Animosity grows between King Pelias and Jason. Pindar claims that Medea was sent as a punishment to King Pelias, functioning as a goddess and a vengeful Eriny (or Fury). In this episode, Medea orchestrates the king’s death in a most cunning way. She summons the king’s daughters and displays her healing and rejuvenating abilities by cutting up a ram and putting its body parts in a bowl to turn it into a lamb. In some variations, she rejuvenates Aeson, Jason’s father,16 and in other versions she rejuvenates Jason himself. In the principal narrative, 12 Graf, “Medea, the Enchantress from Afar,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 28–29. 13 Euripides, Medea, ed. David Kovacs (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002): 480–482. 14 Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. A. D. Melville, intro. and notes. Edward J. Kenney (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998): 7.149–158; Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica, trans. John H. Mozley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 8.54–121; “Orphic Argonautica,” in Jason and the Argonauts Through the Ages, Colavito: 887–1021; Tzetzes, “Commentary on Lycophron Alexandra,” in Alexandra, Hornblower: 615. 15 Von Ulrich Wilamovitz-Moellendrorff, Hellenistische Dichtung in der Zeit des Kallimachos (Berlin: Weidmann, 1924), I, p. 193: Pherecydes, in FGrH, Jacoby: 32.f3; Eumelus, “Corinthiaca,” in FGrH, Jacoby: fr. 2ab, 3ab; Sophocles, “Kolchides,” in FGrH, Jacoby: fr. 343 (Radt [and also Skythai]); Apollonios, Argonautica: 4.1638–1688; Ovid, Tristia, ed. John Barrie Hall (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1995): 3.9.21–34; Ovid, “Heroides,” in Heroides and Amores, trans. Grant Showerman, rev. George P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014): 6.19f; Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica: 8.261–467. Jan N. Bremmer, “Why Did Medea Kill Her Brother Apsyrtus?,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 83–100. 16 Pindar, Pythian: 4.138–167; Euripides, Peliades (lost); Hagias, “Nostoi,” in PEG, Page: fr. 7.

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Medea entices King Pelias’ daughters to similarly rejuvenate their father by cutting him up. Yet when the daughters follow her advice, they end up killing their father. This myth was first recorded by Hesiod, and numerous artistic manifestations, to be elaborated on below, date it to the Archaic age.17 Common to all literary variations of the Medea myth is her knowledge of herbs and witchcraft, and her possession of profound knowledge. In some instances, she is simply referred to as a knowledgeable woman; in the Theogony, Medea is the daughter of Idyia – “the knowledgeable one.” Her genealogy also attests to her knowledge: Medea is the niece or sister of Circe, the feared witch that Odysseus encountered on his travels.18 Indeed, Jan N. Bremmer compared Medea and Jason’s relationship to that of Circe and Odysseus as his initiatrix (tutor or mentor), thereby underscoring the similarities between these two witches.19 This similarity was already hinted at by Apollonios when describing the return path of the Argo, which sails past Circe, Scylla, and Charybdis in a reconstruction of Odysseus’s route.20 In all versions of the myth, Medea is the granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and is therefore herself a goddess or a demigoddess.21 Dionysus Scytobrachion describes her as the daughter of Hecate, the patron goddess of witchcraft; she is sometimes also described as a priestess or student of Hecate, to whom she constantly addresses her rituals.22 Overall, Medea’s genealogy attests to her powerful witchcraft and divine status. In early literary renditions of the myth, Jason is also associated with healing.23 17 Hesiod, Theogony: 992–1002; Ovid, Metamorphoses: 7.159–321; Hyginus, Fabulae, ed. Peter K. Marshal (Munich: K. G. Saur, 2002): 24; Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History, trans. Russel M. Geer, Bradford C. Welles and Charles H. Oldfather (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014): 4.52.1–2; Apollonios, Argonautica: 4.241–243; Apollodorus of Athens, The Library, ed. and trans. James G. Frazer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014): 1.9.27; Simonides, in Poetae melici graeci: Alcmanis, Stesichori, Ibyci, Anacreontis, Simonidis, Corinnae, poetarum Minorum reliquias, Carmina popularia et Conuiuialia quaeque Adespota Feruntur (PMG), Denys L. Page (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967): 584. Vojatzi, Frühe Argonautenbilder, p. 95. 18 Homer, The Odyssey: 10.133–546; Hesiod, Theogony: 956–962; Pherekydes in FGrH, Jacoby: 3F105, 3F113; Dionysius Scytobrachion, in FGrH, Jacoby: 4.45. Vojatzi, Frühe Argonautenbilder, p. 95. 19 Bremmer, “Why Did Medea Kill Her Brother Apsyrtus?,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 86–87. 20 Apollonios, Argonautica: 3.45, 528, 1026–1024, 4.659–981. 21 C. A. E. Luschnig, Granddaughter of the Sun: A Study of Euripides’ Medea (Leiden: Brill, 2007). 22 Euripides, in Medea, ed. intro. and comm. Denys L. Page (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938): xiv; Ovid, Metamorphoses: 7.74–99, 192–204; Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History: 4.4. Pietro Pucci, The Violence of Pity in Euripides’ “Medea” (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980), pp. 159, 165; Graf, “Medea, the Enchantress from Afar,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, p. 31; Nita Krevans, “Medea as Foundation-Heroine,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 71–82; Maria R. Candido, “Medea and the Rejuvenation of Pelias: One Alternative Version,” Global Journal of Human-Social Science, 20.3 (September 2020), pp. 1–6, p. 2. 23 Christopher J. Mackie, “The Earliest Jason: What’s in a Name?,” Greece and Rome, ser. 2, 48.1 (April 2001), pp. 1–17.

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After King Pelias is murdered, Medea and Jason are forced to flee again and settle in Corinth. The Corinthian episode is extensively chronicled in Euripides’s Medea, which was first performed in Athens in 431 BCE at the city’s Dionysia festival.24 The direct connection between Euripides’ play and the artistic representation of this myth is well established.25 In this version of the myth, Jason seeks to improve his status by marrying Creusea, the daughter of King Creon of Corinth. Rejected and outraged, Medea plots to avenge her fall from favor. She sends Creusea a dress and a crown filled with poison, which a later variation describes as having been made from the venom concocted by small snakes and great dragons, including Python, the Hydra, and the dragon of Colchis. In Euripides’s play, Creusea and her father are killed by Medea’s poisoned gifts, which are delivered by Medea’s children. She then murders her own children, excusing this horrific act by claiming that they would have been caught and killed anyway for collaborating with her. In later variations, she proclaims that the murder of the children was her revenge on Jason. After performing the inconceivable act of slaying her own children, Medea flees to Athens in a solar chariot driven by flying dragons, which is sent by her grandfather Helios. This scene was often depicted on southern Italian vases from 400–360 BCE. Some of these artistic representations adhere closely to Euripides’s play, as is the case in the Cleveland Medea calyx crater in the Cleveland Museum of Art (fig. 29).26 Other artists interpreted the myth in their own ways, or were inspired by lost mythical variations, as made evident by an Apulian volute crater in the Antikensammlungen in Munich (fig. 30), which according to Sourvinou-Inwood depicts the artist’s poetic interpretation of the myth.27 24 Euripides, Medea; Louis Sechan, Études sur la tragedie grecque dans ses rapports avec la ceramique (Paris: Champion, 1967), pp. 396–422; Bernard M. W. Knox, “The Medea of Euripides,” Yale Classical Studies, 25 (1977), pp. 193–225; Bernard M. W. Knox, Word and Action: Essays on the Ancient Theater (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), pp. 295–322; Bernard M. W. Knox, “The Medea of Euripides,” in Oxford Readings in Greek Tragedy, ed. Erich Segal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 272–293; David Kovacs, “Zeus in Euripides’ Medea,” American Journal of Philology, 114.1 (Spring 1993), pp. 45–70; Deborah Boedeker, “Becoming Medea: Assimilation in Euripides,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 127–148; Luschnig, Granddaughter of the Sun; Lora L. Holland, “Last Act in Corinth: The Burial of Medea’s Children (E. Med. 1378–83),” Classical Journal, 103.4 (April–May 2008), pp. 407–430. 25 Oliver Taplin, Comic Angels: And Other Approaches to Greek Drama through Vase-Paintings (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 17–27; Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, “Medea at a Shifting Distance,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 253–296, particularly 272–273; Oliver Taplin, Pots and Plays: Interactions between Tragedy and Greek Vase-Painting of the Fourth Century BC (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007), pp. 117–125. 26 Martin Revermann, “The ‘Cleveland Medea’ Calyx Crater and the Iconography of Ancient Greek Theatre,” Theatre Research International, 30.1 (2005), pp. 3–18. 27 Seneca, “Medea,” in Six Tragedies, trans., intro. and notes. Emily Wilson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 92, 684–705. Ogden, “Medea as Mistress of Dragons,” p. 275.

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Figure 29 – Cleveland Medea, ca. 400 BCE, Lucanian red-figure calyx crater, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio © public domain from Cleveland Museum.

Medea is also associated with Corinth in other myths. In his Corinthiaca, the seventh-century BCE Corinthian author Eumelus associates Medea with Corinth through her genealogy, which is also attested to by Pausanias.28 In this variation, King Aietes, Medea’s father, was the ruler of both Colchis and Corinth, and Medea was summoned by the people of Corinth to take the place of her absent father.29 28 Eumelus, “Corinthiaca,” in FGrH, Jacoby: fr. 3a. 29 Pausanias, Description of Greece, trans. and eds. William H. S. Jones, Henry A. Ormerod and Richard E. Wycherley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 2.3.10–11. Graf, “Medea, the Enchantress from Afar,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 34–35.

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Figure 30 – The Underworld Painter, Medea Episodes, 330–310 BCE, Apulian red-figure volute crater from Canossa, Antikensammlungen, Munich (No. 3296/J 810) © Marcus Cyron, public domain, Wikimedia.

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The theme of infanticide is explored by Johnston in her brilliant examination of the Corinthian variation of the myth and the rituals related to it. This variation depicts Medea as a faithful woman and mother, who rejected Zeus’s courtship. In return, Hera promised her that her children would become immortal. Medea brought her children to Hera’s temple so that the goddess could fulfill her promise, but her children died there. A scholia to Pausanias documents another version, in which Medea’s children were unjustly stoned by the Corinthians, an act resulting in a plague that killed the city’s infants.30 Johnston explores Corinthian rituals dedicated to Hera Akraia and Medea’s children, as part of a broader investigation of Hera’s dual approach to children, and of the nature of fertility demons such as Lamia and Mormo, which Johnston relates to the mysterious statue that Pausanias describes as Terror on display in Corinth. Pausanias informs us that it was a statue of a woman, and associates it with the rituals of Medea’s children’s cult. Johnston thus suggests that the statue represented an act of infanticide of some sort, such as that committed by Lamia or Mormo, which was intended to provide apotropaic protection for children.31 Euripides was likely aware of a Corinthian ritual related to Medea’s children, because at the end of his play Medea states, “I shall bury them with my own hand, taking them to the sanctuary of Hera Akraia, so that none of my enemies may outrage them by tearing up their graves. And I shall enjoin on this land of Sisyphus a solemn festival and holy rites for all time to come in payment for this unholy murder.”32 30 Scholia to Pindar, “Olympian,” in Scholia vetera in Pindari Carmina 2 Scholia in Pythionicas: Adiectae svnt dvae tabvlae phototypicae, ed. A. B. Drachmann (Leipzig: Teubner, 1997): 13.74. 31 ap. Creophylus in FGrH, Jacoby: fr. 3; Pausanias, Description of Greece: 2.3.6–7. René Girard, Violence and the Sacred, trans. Patrick Gregory (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), pp. 9–10; Sarah Iles Johnston, “Corinthian Medea and the Cult of Hera Akraia,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 44–70; Lora L. Holland, “Last Act in Corinth,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 407–430. On the cult of Hera Akraia and its rituals, see John Salmon, “The Heraeum at Perachora and the Early History of Corinth and Megara,” Annual of the British School at Athens, 67 (1972), pp. 159–204; R. A. Tomlinson, “The Upper Terraces at Perachora,” Annual of the British School at Athens, 72 (1977), pp. 197–202; S. Johnston, “Corinthian Medea and the Cult of Hera Akraia,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 46–55. For more information on the Lamia and Mormo, see Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, pp. 97–108; Theocritus, “Idyll,” in Moschus; Bion, ed. and trans. Neil Hopkinson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 15.40; Aristides, “Panathenaic Oration,” in Orations, ed. and trans. Michael B. Trapp (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017): 1.41; Horace, “The Art of Poetry,” in Satires; Epistles; The Art of Poetry, trans. Rushton H. Fairclough (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 340. S. Johnston, “Corinthian Medea and the Cult of Hera Akraia,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 57–59; Daniel Ogden, Drakōn: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 86–92. 32 Euripides, Medea: 264, quotation 1378–1383; Parmeniscus ap. scholia to Euripides, Medea: 264. Ann N. Michelini, “‘Neophron and Euripides’ Medeia, 1056–1080,” Transactions of the American Philological Association, 119 (1989), pp. 115–135; Emily A. McDermott, Euripides’ Medea: The Incarnation of Disorder (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989), pp. 9–24; Graf, “Medea, the Enchantress

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More frequently in various narrative variations, after she flees Corinth Medea arrives in Athens, marries the Attic King Aegeus, and bears him children. When Theseus, Aegeus’ firstborn (whom the king does not know nor recognize) arrives in Athens in search of his father, Medea recognizes him, and plots to kill him. Without revealing Theseus’ true identity, Medea tells Aegeus that Theseus is a threat to him, and plots to poison Theseus at a feast. Only after Aegeus gives the poisoned wine to Theseus, does he recognize him thanks to either a sandal or a sword Aegeus gave to Theseus’s mother before leaving her. Aegeus knocks the poisoned cup out of Theseus’s hand, and Medea is yet again compelled to flee Athens.33 Eventually, Medea reaches the land of the Medes and becomes a goddess there alongside with her son Medus. Sourvinou-Inwood contends that the Medes were actually Persians, hence Medea is usually depicted in Eastern clothing, a sign of a dangerous “other.”34 Ogden, on the other hand, locates her final destination as the Marruvium beside Lake Fucinus in Italy, identifying Medea with the goddess Angitia, who taught the Marsi the art of healing snakebites.35 Another myth from Afar,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 34–36; S. Johnston, “Corinthian Medea and the Cult of Hera Akraia,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 44–70; Holland, “Last Act in Corinth,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 407–430. 33 Bacchylides, Bacchylides, Corinna, and Others, vol. IV of Greek Lyric, ed. and trans. David Aitken Campbell, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 2015): fr. 18; Callimachus, Callimachus, ed. Rudolfus Pfeiffer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949–1953), “Hecale”: fr. 233; Euripides, Medea: 749–751, 1384–1385, Euripides only informs us of Medea’s arrival in Athens and her welcome by King Aegeus; Hartmut Erbse, ed., Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem (Scholia vetera) (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1969): Ʌ741; Apollodorus, The Library: 9.28; Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History: 4.55.4–6; Aurelius Victor, Epitome de caesaribus, trans. Thomas M. Banchich (Buffalo, NY, and New York: Canisius College, 2018): 1.5–6; Pausanias, Description of Greece: 2.3.8; Eustathius, “Comments on Dionysius Perieg,” in Geographici graeci minores (GGM), Karl F. W. Müller (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1855–1861): 1017; Ovid, Metamorphoses: 7.406–424; Plutarch, “Life of Theseus,” in Plutarch’s Lives, trans. Bernadotte Perrin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 2015): 12.3–7; Dionysius Periegetes, Description of the Known World, trans., intro. and comm. J. L. Lightfoot (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014): 1020–1028; Mai Angelo, “First Mythographer of the Vatican,” in Classici auctores e Vaticanis codicibus editi (Rome: Vatican, 1831), III, p. 48. Graf, “Medea, the Enchantress from Afar,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 36–37; Sourvinou-Inwood, “Medea at a Shifting Distance,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 265–266. Albin Lesky argues that there is a lost tragedy by Euripides titled Aegeus that depicted this myth and was earlier than his Medea; see Albin Lesky, Die tragische Dichtung der Hellenen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1972), p. 305. Bernard M. W. Knox argues against this hypothesis; see Knox, Word and Action, p. 316. 34 Sourvinou-Inwood, “Medea at a Shifting Distance,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 253–296. 35 Hesiod, Theogony: 1000–1002; Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Robin Waterfield, intro. and notes. Carolyn Dewald (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008): 7.62; Pausanias, Description of Greece: 2.3.8; Strabo, The Geography of Strabo, trans. Duane W. Roller (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014): 11.13.10; Hyginus, Fabulae: 27; Servius, Commentary on the Aeneid of Virgil: 7.750.1; Eustathius, “Comments on Dionysius Perieg,” in GGM, Müller: 1017.20; Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History: 4.55.5,

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recounts Medea visiting the grave of her brother Apsyrtus in order to assist the local village with the problem of snakes emerging from his grave, a phenomenon common to heroes’ graves. Medea performs a magical ritual that makes the snakes return to the grave.36 A survey of diverse Medea myths from different locations and eras raises several issues. On the one hand, there is the Archaic description of Medea, which portrays her as a goddess and as the female protagonist of several ktisis (foundation) myths.37 She is usually described as becoming a goddess at the end of the mythical narrative. On the other hand, her status as a mortal is controversial, given her unusual abilities to rejuvenate and communicate with the deadliest dragons, and her genealogy. She is also often described as a prophet with access to profound knowledge of the future. On other occasions, she is depicted as a cold and calculating female who performs “unwomanly” acts of horror and of passionate and uncontrolled rage, such as enticing the daughters of King Pelias to slay their own father, killing and dismembering her brother, and murdering her own children.38 The conflict evident in Medea’s behavior makes her an extremely complex figure to analyze; so inconsistent are her deeds that most scholars chose to claim that initially the myths about her were based on different figures, which were combined under a single name. The current study challenges this claim, arguing that there is no reason that the Athenians, Corinthians, and Apollonians would all randomly associate the same name with closely related topics of infanticide, witchcraft, serpents, and murder. As I will demonstrate, early artistic manifestations 7; Scholia to Aristophanes, “Pax,” in Earl A. Burns, “The Scholia and Fragments of the Pax of Aristophanes as Found in Suidas,” doctoral dissertation (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1940), p. 289; Silius Italicus Tiberius Catius, Punica, trans. James D. Duff (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014): 8.495–99. Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, Theseus as Son and Stepson: A Tentative Illustration of Greek Mythological Mentality (London: University of London, 1979), p. 49; Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, “Myths in Images,” in Approaches to Greek Myth, ed. Lowell Edmunds (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), pp. 395–413; Sourvinou-Inwood, “Medea at a Shifting Distance,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, p. 280; Ogden, “Medea as Mistress of Dragons,” p. 275. 36 Artemidorus Daldianus, Oneirocritica, notes. Nicolas Rigalt and Johan J. Reiske (New York: S. L. Crusius, 1805): 2.13; Aristophanes (School of), Plutus (Adelaide: University of Adelaide Library, 2008): 733; Virgil, “Aeneid,” in Eclogues; Georgics; Aeneid: Books 1–6, trans. Rushton H. Fairclough, rev. George P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 5.95; Plutarch, “Agis and Cleomenes,” in Lives: 60; Hyginus, Fabulae: 26; Pliny, Natural History: 16.234; Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, p. 275. Ogden, Drakōn, p. 209. 37 Carol L. Dougherty-Glenn, Apollo, ktisis and Pindar: Literary Representations of Archaic City Foundations, doctoral dissertation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1988). 38 Pindar, Pythian: 4.15–20; Euripides, Medea: 674–81; Apollonios, Argonautica: 3.616–632; Asclepiades the Mythographer, scholia to Pindar, “Pythian,” in FGrH, Jacoby: 4.18. Krevans, “Medea as Foundation-Heroine,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 71–82; Dolores M. O’Higgins, “Medea as Muse: Pindar’s Pythian 4,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 103–126.

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of Medea may shed light on her identity, and on the reasons for her simultaneous emergence in different geographical locations. Furthermore, in her mature myths, Medea’s relationship with dragons has several aspects, which can further advance our understanding of the motif of the woman and the dragon. As noted, she is the virgin attendant of the Colchis dragon, a representation visually allying her with the holy woman type and with other goddesses and mistresses of dragons. The help she receives from snakes in acquiring profound knowledge of healing and poisoning is also an aspect of the holy woman. Finally, Medea’s solar, dragon-driven chariot forms a semantic connection between serpents, flames, passion, and uncontrolled and irrational emotions. This chapter further underscores Medea’s association with the dual nature of the serpent, as a healer and protector as well as a messenger of death and a killer.39

The Healer and the Witch: Medea in Iolcus Artistic evidence of Medea has survived from as early as the seventh century BCE, and includes images that depict different iconographic types. The oldest evidence is documented by Pausanias in the ekphrasis, in which he describes the image on the chest of Cypselus that he saw in Corinth: Medea is seated next to Jason on one side, while Aphrodite is seated on the other. The image was inscribed: “Jason marries Medea, Aphrodite commands.”40 As this image and the accompanying inscription suggest, the theme of marriage was at the heart of the Medea and Jason myths, along with Aphrodite’s strict control over events, a theme of great importance in the Theogony. 41 A Caeretan amphora (fig. 31) dated to 660–640 BCE is confidently identified by Margot Schmidt as the oldest surviving image of Medea, although Ogden is cautious about this identification. Schmidt is probably correct in deducing that this is an image of Medea, due to the artistic connections between the female figure and the dragon, particularly the dots on the three-headed serpents and on the female 39 Johnston, “Introduction,” pp. 5–8; Graf, “Medea, the Enchantress from Afar,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 21–22; O’Higgins, “Medea as Muse,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 103–126, particularly p. 104. 40 Pausanias, Description of Greece: 5.18.3. “Medea,” in LIMC, VI/1, p. 388, VI/2, fig. 1. 41 Hesiod, Theogony: 998–1002. Jenifer Neils, “Iason,” in LIMC, V/1, p. 631; Karl Schefold, Myth and Legend in Early Greek Art (London: Thames and Hudson, 1966), pp. 77–78; Erika Simon, “Medea,” in Enciclopedia dell’arte antica, classica e orientale, eds. Ranucchio Bianchi Bandinelli, Giovanni Becatti, and Carlo Bertelli (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1958–1966), p. 951; Vojatzi, Frühe Argonautenbilder, pp. 91–92; Karl Schefold, Gods and Heroes in Late Archaic Greek Art, trans. Alan Griffiths (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 193; Sourvinou-Inwood, “Medea at a Shifting Distance,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, p. 262.

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Figure 31 – A Dragon-Tending Woman, 660–640 BCE, Caeretan red-on-white amphora, Allard-Pierson Collection, Amsterdam (No.10.188) © Jérémy-Günther-Heinz Jähnick, public domain, Wikimedia Commons & Louvre-Lens / GFDL-1.2.

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figure’s long dress, which mirror one another. Notably, this image is the first in a long iconology of female figures feeding a dragon. Schmidt’s analysis interprets the conceptual connection between Medea and Hygieia as being parallel to the Archaic connection between Jason and Asclepius, and concludes that this figure is the first iconographic manifestation of Medea-Hygieia feeding the dragon. 42 An Etruscan engraved olpe dated to ca. 630 BCE, now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, presents the first evidence of the iconographic tradition representing Medea and King Pelias. Medea, identified by the name Metaia, stands beside a cauldron from which a female figure emerges, with King Pelias alongside her.43 The detailed narrative associated with Medea’s name (whose spelling varies) proves that this myth was familiar over a wide geographic area. The figure that is rejuvenated in this image, however, is not the ram but rather a woman, a choice that is atypical of this iconography. From the beginning of the sixth century BCE onward, the iconography of Medea centers on the rejuvenation of the ram before King Pelias and his daughters. This iconography is evident in the Beldam Painter’s Attic lekythos, dated to ca. 525–475 BCE and now in the Athens National Museum, in the Leagros Group’s Attic hydria dating from ca. 510–500 BCE, at the British Museum, London; and in the Copenhagen Painter’s Attic hydria (fig. 32), dated to ca. 510–500 BCE, also at the British Museum, which is probably a copy of a larger painting due to the existence of numerous other, nearly identical vase paintings. 44 The Pelian iconography offers two other noteworthy exceptions dating to the Archaic period. One is a white-ground lekythos, dated to ca. 500–450 BCE and attributed to the Haimon Painter, which was found in Vulci in Etruria and is now in the National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden. This painting portrays Medea’s demonstration of rejuvenating a man – presumably Jason – rather than a ram, illustrating an episode described in various texts. Another exceptional image is a fragmentary Corinthian vase dated to ca. 575 BCE, now in a private collection in Thessaloniki, depicts Jason closing the eyes of Pelias, who is shaking the hands of the two Argonauts, Kastor and Pollux. Medea does not appear on this fragment, which led Mata Vojatzi, Jennifer Neils, and Christopher J. Mackie to conclude that it is Jason who is performing the healing demonstration. Mackie’s article “The Earliest Jason: What’s in a Name?” proposes that Jason’s name, which means “the healer,” alongside fragmentary evidence connecting Jason with Asclepius, define Jason’s early character as that of a healing hero. The current discussion questions this reading of the Corinthian fragment, arguing instead that the female figure beside 42 Margot Schmidt, “Medea,” in LIMC, VI/1, p. 388, V/2, fig. 2; Ogden, Drakōn, p. 203. 43 Schmidt, “Medea,” in LIMC, VI/1, p. 388, V/2, fig. 1. 44 Hugo Meyer, Medeia und die Peliaden: Eine attische Novelle und ihre Entstehung; Ein Versuch zur Sagenforschung auf archäologischer Grundlage (Rome: Bretschneider, 1980); Emma Griff iths, Medea (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 23–25; Candido, “Medea and the Rejuvenation of Pelias.”

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Figure 32 – The Copenhagen Painter, Medea Rejuvenates a Ram, 510–500 BCE, Attic red-figure hydria, The British Museum, London (1843,1103.76) © ArchaiOptix, public domain, Wikimedia.

Pelias is construed as Idyia (Idaea, “the knowledgeable one”), who is Medea’s mother according to the Theogony. This figure, alongside the three-legged cauldron in front of them, supports the Pelian mythonographic scheme, in which Idaea performs the ritual instead of Medea. Interestingly, this artifact is from Corinth, where the myths of Medea’s children and of Hera Akraia both originated. 45 45 Hesiod, Theogony: 959; Simonides, in PMG, Page: fr. 548; Pherecydes, in FGrH, Jacoby: 3.F.113a. “Iason,” in LIMC, V/1, p. 637, V/2, fig. 7; Vojatzi, Frühe Argonautenbilder, pp. 98, 95–97, n. 787; Geoffrey S. Kirk, The Nature of Greek Myths (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1985), p. 163; Gantz, Early Greek Myth, I, p. 367;

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The iconography of King Pelias was popular until the middle of the fourth century BCE, after which only slim evidence of it remains, such as in the Attic relief from the altar for the twelve Gods in the Athenian Agora, which has been preserved only in Roman copies like the one dated to 420–410 BCE and now in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin. This iconography was replaced by other iconographies of Medea, particularly by the myths concerning Colchis and Corinthia. 46 Also worthy of attention is a group of four black-figured, white Attic lekythoi, which depict a female face and neck in profile that is framed by two serpents, such as the lekythoi dated to ca. 530 BCE, now at the British Museum, London. The four objects are almost identical, indicating a better-known origin, and one of the vases bears the inscription “Medeia.” These figures are important, since they are all dated to ca. 530 BCE and manifest the connection between Medea and serpents as primary and essential to her character and role. They also provide a link between Medea’s divine qualities and various other divine characters who were represented early on alongside serpents; these include Athena, with the serpents on her shoulders and the oikouros ophis at her side, as well as the Erinyes, represented as holding a serpent in each hand. Ogden cautiously relates the connection between early Greek goddesses and serpents to much earlier Minoan statues, such as the famous one from the Neopalatial period (1700–1450 BCE) that was found in the Palace of Knossos and is now in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum. These female figurines, which could be goddesses or priestesses, hold a serpent in each hand, stressing the connection between powerful female figures and serpents. 47 Frontal images of a figure holding a serpent in each hand are known from representations of the Egyptian gods Bas and Horus, and are associated in particular with magic objects, such as the twelfth-dynasty (1962–1802 BCE) magical ivory knife Walter Burkert, Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 68, 205, no. 42; Sourvinou-Inwood, “Medea at a Shifting Distance,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 264–265; Graf, “Medea, the Enchantress from Afar,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, p. 34; Mackie, “The Earliest Jason: What’s in a Name?,” pp. 7–8; Candido, “Medea and the Rejuvenation of Pelias.” 46 Erika Simon, “Die Typen der Medea darstellung in der antiken Kunst,” Gymnasium, 61 (1954), pp. 209–210; Robertson, A History of Greek Art, pp. 374, 684, n. 34; Verena Zinnerling-Paul, “Zum Bild der Medea in der antiken Kunst,” Klio, 61 (1979), pp. 407–436, particularly pp. 417–418, n. 28, fig. 8; Meyer, Medeia und die Peliaden, pp. 38–50; Sourvinou-Inwood, “Medea at a Shifting Distance,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, p. 267. 47 Marija Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess (London: Thames and Hudson, 1989), pp. 128–133; Nanno Marinatos, Minoan Religion: Ritual, Image, and Symbol (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993), pp. 148, 157–159, 222–223, 276–279, 292; Kenneth Lapatin, Mysteries of the Snake Goddess: Art, Desire, and the Forging of History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002), pp. 60–90; A. Trčová-Flamee, “The Motif of the Snake and Its Meaning in Minoan Iconography: The Relation between Crete, Egypt and Near East,” Eirene, 39 (2003), pp. 119–149; Geraldine C. Gesell, “The Snake Goddesses of the LM IIIB and LM IIIC Periods,” British School at Athens Studies, 18 (2010), pp. 131–139; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 7–8, 198–199.

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from Thebes, now in the British Museum. Such images also appear in Near Eastern representations of Hathor/Anat, such as the Triple Goddess Stone dated to the age of Rameses III (1198–1166 BCE) at Winchester College in Winchester, which evolved into the iconography employed to represent the Egyptian goddess Isis.48 Isis was associated with the cobra, and eventually came to appear as an anguiped that is mostly paired with Sarapis, as on the limestone stele relief from the National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden. The frontal figure with serpents in hand, alluding to sorcery and fertility, was also adopted in the iconography of Medea’s patron goddess Hecate, as in the case of the bronze statue in the Palazzo dei Conservatori Museum, Rome, from the first century CE. The three-headed goddess of fertility and the underworld, and the protector of witches, is presented as three conjoined figures, one of which holds a serpent in her hand. The repetition of the motif of the goddess with serpents suggests that Medea functioned, beginning in the Archaic age and even earlier, as a divine entity associated with fertility and with healing characteristics, as well as with evil sorcery. The suspicious attitude toward healing is attested to by the Archaic attitude toward Asclepius as a sorcerer capable of performing both positive and negative magic, since healing was seen as changing human fate as predetermined by the gods.49

Feeding the Dragon: Medea in Colchis There is a consensus among scholars that 431 BCE, the year in which Euripides’ play Medea was first performed, marked an important shift in artistic representations 48 “Isis,” in LIMC, V/1, pp. 778–789. Georg Steindorff, “The Magical Knives of Ancient Egypt,” Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, 9 (1946), pp. 41–51, 106–107; Françoise Dunand, “Les représentations de l’Agathodémon à propos de quelques bas-reliefs du Musée d’Alexandrie,” Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale du Caire, 67 (1969), pp. 9–48; Lordena Sist, Stele magica con figuratione di dea serpente da Antinoe (Rome: Università di Roma, 1979); Henk S. Versnel, Ter Unus; Isis, Dionysos, Hermes; Three Studies in Henotheism (Leiden: Brill, 1990), pp. 234–260; David. R. West, Some Cults of the Greek Goddesses and Female Daemons of Oriental Origin: Especially in Relation to the Mythology of Goddesses and Daemons in the Semitic World (Kevelaer: Butzon and Bercker, 1995); Michel Malaise, “Le probleme de l’hellénisation d’Isis,” in De Memphis a Rome, ed. Laurent Bricault (Leiden; Boston; Köln: Brill, 2000), pp. 1–19; Massimiliano Franci, “Isis-Thermouthis and the Anguiform Deities in Egypt: A Cultural and Semantic Evolution,” Journal of Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Archaeology, 2 (2015), pp. 35–40. 49 Ogden, “Medea as Mistress of Dragons,” pp. 267–268; Ogden, Drakōn, p. 198. For comprehensive studies of Hecate, see “Hekate,” in LIMC, VI/1, pp. 985–1018; Theodor Kraus, Hekate: Studien zu Wesen und Bild der Goettin in Kleinasien und Griecheland (Heidelberg: Winter, 1960); Maurice F. Nouveau-Piobb, Hècate: La dèesse magique des âmes (Paris: Omnium Littéraire, 1961); Sarah Iles Johnston, Hekate Soteira: A Study of Hekate’s Role in the Chaldean Oracles and Related Literature (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1990), pp. 189–192; Pierre Sauzeau, “Hèkatè, archère, magicienne et empoisonneuse,” Moreau and Turpin, 2 (2000), pp. 199–222; Thomas Lautwein, Hekate: Die dunkle Göttin (Rudolstadt: Geschichte and Gegenwart, 2009); Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 255–259.

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of Medea, which involved the addition of two new iconographies to the repertoire. The first iconography depicts her as the mistress of the dragon of Colchis, to whom she feeds a magical potion in order to help Jason steal the Golden Fleece. This iconography first appeared in 415 BCE on an Apulian volute crater, now in the Museum of Antiquities, Munich, which depicts Jason confronting the dragon while Medea stands behind him holding her box of herbs. Earlier images that preceded 415 BCE depicted Jason combating the dragon alone or with the aid of Athena, and sometimes even caught in the mouth of the dragon. Medea’s assistance was therefore a new visual concept related to her box of herbs. The box is an interesting object in and of itself, since it is almost identical to the wedding boxes given to Andromeda on vases such as those from the Etruscan city of Vulci. Medea’s wedding gift to Jason is the gift of life – a reversal of roles in comparison with the myth of Perseus and Andromeda. Although early representations of this scene represent Jason as active, he is gradually transformed into a passive figure who is not heroically fighting the dragon, but rather stealing the Golden Fleece thanks to the distraction created by Medea. This challenging of accepted gender roles is characteristic of representations of Medea, going back to the earliest images of her.50 Only a small number of vase paintings depict Medea with the herb box. These include the Jason Painter’s bell-krater, dated to 360 BCE and now in a private collection in Turin; the Lycurgus Painter’s volute crater, found in Ravo and dated to ca. 350 BCE, now in the Hermitage in Leningrad, and the Meidias Painter’s hydria, dated to ca. 400 BCE, in the British Museum, London. In this last image, Medea is depicted underneath the vase handle in the space between two scenes, one of which represents Hercules in the garden of the Hesperides. The above-described iconography was replaced by one in which Medea is seen offering a phiale to the dragon, whose earliest known version appears on a Lucanian hydria dated to ca. 380–360 BCE and now in the Louvre Museum, Paris.51 The figures are nameless and could be confused with the Hesperides, but Ogden rightly notes that the winged image should be identified as the Argonaut Boread, while the Oriental-looking hat is Medea’s. The slightly later Paestan squat lekythos at Ruhr University in Germany, portrays Jason with the Golden Fleece in his hand. An early Apulian volute crater dated to ca. 320–310 BCE, now in the Naples National Museum (fig. 33), is one of the best preserved examples of this iconography. This phiale iconography endured into the Roman period, as made evident by a painted fresco from Pompeii, now in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Trier, Germany, and by several Roman sarcophagi, such as one in the Museum of Antiquities, Basel. 50 Sourvinou-Inwood, “Medea at a Shifting Distance,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 269–279; Griffiths, Medea, pp. 18–19, 71–84; Ogden, “Medea as Mistress of Dragons,” pp. 270–271. 51 Malcolm Bell, “A Coptic Jason Relief,” Gesta, 18.1 (1979), pp. 45–52, particularly p. 48, fig. 7.

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Figure 33 – Medea Feeds the Dragon, 320–310 BCE, Paestan red-figure early Apulianizing volute crater, Naples National Museum, Naples (82126) © su conncessione del Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali e per il Turismo – Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli – photo Di Giorgio Alban.

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This scenario was vividly described by Valerius Flaccus, who claimed that Medea considered the dragon to be her pet and fed it honey cakes. When the dragon fell asleep under her spell, Medea’s reaction was both emotional and erotic: Medea herself, when she saw the head of her dear dragon on the ground, threw herself upon him and put her arms around him, and wept for herself and for her nursling, to whom she was being so cruel. This was not how you looked when late at night I brought you offerings and feasts, nor was I like this when I put honey cakes in your gaping mouth and faithfully nourished you with my herbs.52

The erotic interaction between the virgin Medea and the holy dragon to which she made offerings reflects the previously outlined debate concerning the relationship between priestesses and holy dragons. The erotic connotation of a sexual encounter is also associated with the theme of “the bride of death” discussed in the previous chapter, which equated the close and intimate connection between the woman and the dragon with a couple’s amorous encounter. However, in the case of Medea, artistic representations of this scene, going back to its earliest examples, stress the sacred interaction between the mistress and her worshiped dragon.53 The iconography of feeding the sacred serpent occupies a prominent place in Greco-Roman art. It appears consistently in representations of Hygieia, such as the Roman marble statue in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (fig. 34), which is a copy of a third-century BCE Greek statue. It is difficult to establish when representations of Hygieia first emerged. The Istanbul Relief from the Therme of Thessaloniki, dated to the fifth century BCE and now in the Archaeological Museum, Istanbul, is the one and only clue indicating that Hygieia was represented as feeding the serpent before Asclepius, prior to 500 BCE. This image has been associated with visual representations of the ritual of feeding the dragon originating in Sparta, where reliefs portrayed warriors feeding their avatar serpents from a kantharos vase. One such image appears on a Laconian relief from Chrysapha, dated to 540 BCE, now in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin. Gina Salapata argues that this iconography originated in Lakonia. Ogden views the dragon as a residue of an ancient tradition dating back to the Minoan and Mycenaean ages, according to which the serpent was the embodiment of a guardian demon and the actual image of an earth goddess. This concept endured in Rome, where serpents were considered the embodiment of the genius paterfamilias (the spirits of ancestral forefathers), and a conceptual avatar of the dead hero. I contend that the ambivalence inherent to the iconography 52 Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica: 8.69, translation from Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, p. 129. 53 Ogden, Drakōn, p. 61, n. 212.

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Figure 34 – Hygieia, first century CE, Roman marble statue, copy of a Greek statue from the third century BCE, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg © sailko, public domain, Wikimedia.

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of feeding the dragon is intentional, as exemplified by the image of Hygieia feeding a serpent: Is the goddess worshipping the serpent? Are her powers and essence embedded in the serpent? Or is the serpent itself a disciple of the goddess? This multiplicity of meanings proves that the ambiguity of this motif is deliberate. This complex iconography, I argue, was intended to puzzle the viewer by simultaneously presenting these three options.54 It is impossible to ascertain whether Hygieia was a revival of an earlier tradition in which a female goddess was replaced by a serpent. Visual rituals of feeding the dragon are widely evident in the iconographies of Medea, the Hesperides, and Hygieia from the fourth century BCE onward, and they were gradually assimilated into each other. Medea and the Hesperides are consistently represented as feeding a dragon that encircles a tree. Hygieia is also related to the motif of the tree encircled by a serpent due to her father Asclepius, whose attribute is a serpent coiled around a staff, as is evident in the statue of Asclepius from Poulsen, now in the Glyptotek, Copenhagen Museum.55 54 “Hygieia,” in LIMC, V/2, fig. 5; Charles Daremberg and Edmond Saglio, eds., Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines (Paris: Hachette, 1877–1904), pp. 408–409; Gina Salapata, “The Tippling Serpent in the Art of Lakonia and Beyond,” Hesperia: Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 75.4 (October–December 2006), pp. 541–560; Jocelyn M. C. Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art (London: Thames and Hudson, 1973), p. 233; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 251, 318. On the serpent as a servant or avatar of a hero or heroine, see Otto Seiffert, “Die Totenschlange auf lakonischen Reliefs,” in Festschrift zur jahrhundertfeier der Universität zu Breslau, ed. Theodor Siebs (Breslau: Kommissionverlag von M. und H. Marcus, 1911), pp. 114–126, pp. 113–126; Erich Küster, Die Schlange in der griechischen Kunst und Religion (Giessen: A. Töpelmann [formerly J. Ricker], 1913), pp. 74–85; George W. Elderkin, Kantharos: Studies in Dionysiac and Kindered Cult (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1924), p. 15; Elpis Mitropoulou, Deities and Heroes in the Form of Snakes (Athens: Pyli, 1977), pp. 42–44, 63–66, 82–87; Bernard Sergent, “Le partage du Pèloponnèse entre les Hèraklides (suite),” Revue de l’histoire des religions, 191.1 (1978), pp. 3–25, particularly pp. 11–16; D. Hibler, “The Hero-Reliefs of Lakonia,” in Sculpture from Arcadia and Laconia: Proceedings of an International Conference Held at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, April 10–14, 1992, eds. Olga Palagia and William Coulson, (Oxford: Oxbow, 1993), pp. 199–204; Gina Salapata, “The Lakonian Hero Reliefs,” in Sculpture from Arcadia and Laconia, eds. Palagia and Coulson, pp. 189–197; Gina Salapata, “Hero Warriors from Corinth and Lakonia,” Hesperia: Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 66 (1997), pp. 245–260, pls. 63, 64; W. Schuller, “Heroisierung,” Thesaurus cultus et rituum antiquorum, 2 (2004), pp. 129–158; Salapata, “The Tippling Serpent”; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 247–254. 55 For more information about Hygieia, see “Hygieia,” in LIMC, V/1, pp. 554–572; “Salus,” in LIMC, VII/1, pp. 656–661; Jan Schouten, The Rod and Serpent of Asklepios, Symbol of Medicine, trans. M. E. Hollander (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1967), pp. 38–39, 57–64; Mitropoulou, Deities and Heroes in the Form of Snakes, pp. 184–188; Martin A. Marwood, The Roman Cult of Salus (Oxford: BAR, 1988); Hildegard Sobel, Hygieia: die Gottin der Gesundheit (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1990); Antje Krug, Heilkunst und Heilkult: Medizin in der Antike (Munich: Beck, 1993), pp. 120–187; Emma Stafford, Worshipping Virtues: Personification and the Divine in Ancient Greece (London: Duckworth, 2000), pp. 147–171; Emma Stafford, “Without You No One is Happy,” in Health in Antiquity, ed. Helen King (London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 142–157, particularly pp. 120–135; Emma Stafford, “Personif ication in Greek Religious Thought and Practice,”

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The image of a serpent coiled around a cylindrical object, either a tree or a column, was already discussed in the first chapter of this book in relation to images representing the Plataean Tripod (fig. 6), the Mithraic Leontocephaline figure, and Hermes’s caduceus/kerykeion (fig. 1). Such objects were shown to represent both death and rejuvenation, and were thus related to the concepts of healing and time. The dragon encircling a tree in Medea’s iconography, as well as in that of the Hesperides, has the same symbolic function. Both the Hesperides and Medea are entrusted with healing and are related to the cosmic order of life and death, and both end up assisting in altering the cosmic order of time and mortality.56 The phiale is a specific type of sacrificial plate, often represented with a figure standing beside an altar, as in a hydria dated to 460–450 BCE, depicting Artemis and a worshiper at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. This context reveals that related images of Medea do not simply represent a princess caring for her pet dragon, but rather portray a sacred ritual in which a priestess-princess makes a consecrated daily offering to a sanctified being. This visual motif and the actual ritual of women feeding serpents were interwoven. The previously discussed rituals of maidens feeding serpents, particularly virgins or abstinent women, further imbue this iconology with meaning. The consistent iconography of Hygieia (Salus in Rome; fig. 34) feeding the sacred serpent might be the best representation of this motif, since it portrays the virgin goddess herself performing the ritual, as if in an act of self-worship, thus underscoring the sacred nature of this event. However, Medea’s case is more complex, for although she is responsible for tending to the serpent, the sanctity of this ritual is undermined by the contamination of the holy event. Various documents testify to the afflictions that might arise if a virgin charged with performing holy acts goes astray. One case in point is Pausanias’s story of a in A Companion to Greek Religion, ed. Daniel Ogden (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007), pp. 71–85; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 317–321. For general information about Asclepius, see “Asklepios,” in LIMC, II/1, pp. 863–897; Giannina Solimano, Asclepio: Le aree del mito (Genoa: Università di Genova, Istituto di Filologia Classica e Medieval, 1976); Thomas Schnalke and Claudia Selheim, eds., Asklepios: Heilgott und Heilkult; Ausstellung des Instituts für Geschichte der Medizin der Friedrich-Alexander-Universitaet Erlangen Nuernberg 12. Juli–30. September 1990 (Erlangen: Perimed Fachbuch-Verlag, 1990); Jürgen W. Riethmüller, Asklepios: Heiligtümer und Kulte (Heidelberg: Verlag Archäologie und Geschichte, 2005); Bronwen L. Wickkiser, Asklepios, Medicine, and the Politics of Healing in Fifth-Century Greece: Between Craft and Cult (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008); Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis, Truly beyond Wonders: Aelius Aristides and the Cult of Asklepios (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). For the connection between Asclepius and the serpent image, see Schouten, The Rod and Serpent of Asklepios; Mitropoulou, Deities and Heroes in the Form of Snakes, pp. 183–197; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 310–317. 56 Roger Beck, Planetary Gods and Planetary Orders in the Mysteries of Mithras (Leiden: Brill, 1988), pp. 54–57; Paul Stephenson, The Serpent Column: A Cultural Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 29–96.

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priestess of Artemis who was sworn to virginity, yet entertained her lover in the Temple of Artemis. The angered goddess afflicted the city with plagues until both the priestess and her lover were sacrificed to her. Another Roman example is the Lanuvium ceremony, which had to be performed by a pure virgin. If this condition was not met, a bad agricultural year was to be expected. These rituals join other testimonies of feeding a holy serpent, located in a temple or in other sacred locations (sometimes the serpent is not actually present but is only conceptualized), a ritual that reached its peak in the cults of Zeus Melichios, Agathos Daimon, Asclepius, and Glycon, and is attested to in various other sanctuaries. A serpent, most often one representing the Agathos Daimon, was also tended to in private households.57 In many cases, the serpent was considered an avatar of a god or goddess or a vessel or embodiment of the genius paterfamilias. In all cases, the serpent was viewed as a protector, usually a guardian of a sacred location, and was associated with healing and resurrection. The tree guarded by the Colchis dragon and Hera’s apple tree, guarded by Ladon, were both sacred and were similarly charged with qualities pertaining to healing and resurrection.58 When appearing together, these two signs thus enhanced each other, much like the signs of the dragon and the cave. 57 Aelian, On the Characteristics of Animals, trans. Alwyn F. Scholf ield (London: W. Heinemann, 1958–1959): 11.16, after Phylarchus. 58 Pausanias, Description of Greece: 7.19.1–3; Virgil, Aeneid: 5. 94–96; Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica: 3.457–58. Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art, p. 233; Joan B. Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 41; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 203–206, 347–378. For information about Zeus Melichios and other Zeus serpent-form cults, see Arthur B. Cook, Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1914–1940), II, pp. 1091–1060; Maria T. Manni-Piraino, “Epigrafia selinuntina: Vecchi e nuovi documenti del culto del Meilichios,” Kokalos, 16 (1970), pp. 268–294; Fritz Graf, “Zum Opferkalender des Nikomachos,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 14 (1974), pp. 137–144, pp. 137–144; Mitropoulou, Deities and Heroes in the Form of Snakes, pp. 112–155; Albert Schachter, Cults of Boiotia (London: University of London, Institute of Classical Studies, 1981–1994), III, pp. 96, 123, 152; Michael H. Jameson, David R. Jordan, and Roy D. Kotansky, A “Lex Sacra” from Selinous (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), pp. 81–141; Scott Scullion, “Olympian and Chthonian,” Classical Antiquity, 13.1 (April 1994), pp. 75–119; Riethmüller, Asklepios: Heiligtümer und Kulte, II, pp. 26–35; Lalonde, Horos Dios: An Athenian Shrine and Cult of Zeus (Leiden: Brill, 2006); Jennifer Larson, Ancient Greek Cults (New York: Routledge, 2007), pp. 21–23, 45–47,62–69, 103–120; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 272–285. For information about Agathos Daimon, see “Agathodaimon,” in LIMC, I/1, pp. 227–282; A. Cook, Zeus, II, pp. 1125–1129; Dunand, “Les representations de l’Agathodèmon”; Mitropoulou, Deities and Heroes in the Form of Snakes, pp. 155–168; Michal Pietzykowski, “Sarapis-Agathos Daimon,” in Hommages á M. J. Vermaseren, eds. Margreet B. de Boer and T. A. Edridge (Leiden: Brill, 1978), pp. 959–966; Christian Le Roy, “Les Oiseaux d’Alexandrie,” Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, 105 (1981), pp. 393–406; Giulia Sfameni-Gasparro, “Daimôn and Tuchê in the Hellenistic Religious Experience,” in Conventional Values of the Hellenistic Greeks, eds. Bilde Per et al. (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1997), pp. 67–109; T. W. Hillard, “The Agathos Daimon Abandons Alexandria: The Potter’s Oracle and Possible Roman Allusions,” in Ancient History in a Modern University, vol. I, The Ancient Near East, Greece and Rome, eds. T. W. Hillard, R. A. Kearsley, C. E. V. Nixon, and A. M. Nobbs (New South Wales, Australia: Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, Macquarie University, 1998), I, pp. 160–172; Corinne Jouanno, Naissance et mètamorphoses

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The images of the Hesperides and Medea are also related due to their similar portrayal of a triad involving a female virgin, a dragon, and a tree. In his Aeneid, Virgil relates Medea to the Hesperides by describing one of the Hesperides as sprinkling poppy seeds on the dragon to make him fall asleep. The Hesperides’s garden and apples are allied with the concept of eternal life and the world beyond, and are akin to the iconology of Medea and the Golden Fleece and to her power to rejuvenate. Obtaining the Golden Fleece, like combat, is supposed to grant the hero glory and fame, thus ensuring him of entrance to the Elysian Fields.59 After leaving Colchis, Medea performs many evil actions. While still in Colchis, however, she was a virgin and the legitimate priestess of a goddess, who was charged with performing holy acts. Therefore, similar to Medusa, Medea started out as a priestess, a holy woman with access to profound knowledge, who later went astray. The Medea myth details her use of her knowledge of healing, protection, and prophecy to both good and evil ends. Even after leaving Colchis, she still had access to sacred knowledge, and was thus transformed into a figure who is simultaneously holy and defiled. The myth of Colchis is identified in this study as a myth that debates the transgressions committed by Medea – choosing to betray her father and assist his enemy and betraying her trusting, sacred dragon. It is due to these transgressions that her father and her city lose the precious Golden Fleece. Her status as a princess and as the virgin chosen to tend to the serpent increased du Roman d’Alexandre: Domaine grec (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Editions, 2002), pp. 75–76, 105–108; Daniel Ogden, Alexander the Great: Myth, Genesis and Sexuality (Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 2011), pp. 34–39, 90–95; Daniel Ogden, “The Seleucid Foundation Legends,” in Seleucid Dissolution: The Sinking of the Anchor, eds. Kyle Erickson and Gillian Ramsey (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011), pp. 149–160; Daniel Ogden, “Sekandar, Dragon-Slayer,” in The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East, eds. Richard Stoneman, Kyle Erickson, and Ian Richard Netton (Groningen: Barkhuis; Groningen University Library, 2012), pp. 277–294; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 286–309. For information about the Glycon cult, see “Glycon,” in LIMC, IV/1, pp. 279–283; Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, Rome, the Centre of Power: Roman Art to AD 200, trans. Peter Green (London: Thames and Hudson, 1970), p. 311; Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art, pp. 223–236; Howard M. Jackson, The Lion Becomes Man: The Gnostic Leontomorphic Creator and the Platonic Tradition (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1985), pp. 79–80; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 153–157, 325–330. 59 Virgil, Aeneid: 4.480–86. Evelyn B. Harrison, “Hesperides and Heroes: A Note on the Three-Figure Reliefs,” Hesperia: Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 33.1 (1964), pp. 76–82; Ogden, “Medea as Mistress of Dragons,” p. 272; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 238–240. For concepts concerning the salvation of heroes, see Erwin Rohde, Psyche: The Cult of Souls and the Belief in Immortality among the Greeks (New York: Routledge, 2010), pp. 3–235; E. Harrison, “Hesperides and Heroes,” pp. 76–82; Cynthia King, “Who Is That Cloaked Man?: Observations on Early Fifth Century B.C. Pictures of the Golden Fleece,” American Journal of Archaeology, 87.3 (July 1983), pp. 385–387; David Braund, Georgia in Antiquity: A History of Colchis and Transcaucasian Iberia, 550 BC–AD 562 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 21–23; Otar Lordkipanidze, “The Golden Fleece: Myth, Euhemeristic Explanation and Archaeology,” Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 20.1 (2001), pp. 1–38, pp. 1–38; John K. Newman, “The Golden Fleece: Imperial Dream,” in A Companion to Apollonius Rhodius, eds. Theodore Papanghelis and Antonios Rengakos (Leiden: Brill, 2001), pp. 413–444.

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her responsibility towards her household and land, making her transgressions even worse. The Apulian crater from Canossa (fig. 30) demonstrates the magnitude of Medea’s transgressions even in the context of the Corinth myth, by including the emergence of Aietes’s ghost to draw attention to her original sin.60 The myths of Medea and the Hesperides both also similarly address the issue of transgression, particularly in a sexual context. In all the versions of the Hercules myth, he eventually gets hold of the apples, yet the popular artistic representations of this episode are not found in any literary source. Most textual evidence focuses on the variation of the myth relating to Atlas. The visual evidence suggests that a previous myth existed in which Hercules received the apples directly from the Hesperides, either because one of them fell in love with him and gave him the apples, or because she distracted the dragon so that Hercules could steal them himself, only to find out that she had been deceived. This iconography is known from the fourth century BCE onward, and is exemplified by the image on a pelike dated to 370–360 BCE from Dernah, now in the Yale University Museum, New Haven, in which two Erotes emphasize the aspects of love and desire. The assistance of the Hesperides in tricking the dragon, particularly by feeding it from a phiale so that Hercules could steal the golden treasure, and their betrayal of Hera, Atlas, and Ladon, is comparable to Medea’s many betrayals. In the local Corinthian Medea myth, the theme of betrayal is represented by Hera, who betrays Medea’s trust and kills the fruits of her womb (her children).61 There is a series of vase paintings of the Hesperides sitting by a tree, near or on the dragon, in a manner resembling the allegory of the spring in Cadmos’s iconography (figs. 8–10). Examples are a pelike from Dernah; the Pasithea Painter’s pelike dated to 380–360 BCE, now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, which shows one of the Hesperides seated on the dragon with the tree as a pillar supporting them both; and a hydria from the Metropolitan Museum (fig. 35) that similarly depicts a maiden seated beside a dragon encircling a tree. The Hesperides’s garden is a holy location and, like the oracular cave, a gateway to the underworld. The tree, which symbolizes the tree of life and the pillar of the earth, was given to Hera on her wedding day – the Hieros Gamos – when she was joined with Zeus. Harrison claims that the iconography of the garden of the Hesperides was not originally a narrative, but an allegory for the Elysian Fields of eternal youth which are consecrated to heroes, as seen in the Roman copy of a fifth-century BCE relief from the Altar of the Twelve Gods, now in the Villa Albani Museum in Rome. The symbolic concept 60 Sourvinou-Inwood, “Medea at a Shifting Distance,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 272–273. 61 “Ledon i,” in LIMC, VI/1, fig. 176–177; Ogden, Drakōn, p. 39, particularly n. 87, which suggests that Antonine Tabula Albana, hinted at this episode, although it is clear that he suggested that the hero deceived the dragon (Antonine Tabula Albana, in FGrH, Jacoby: 40.C.2.11–12).

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of the Hesperides’ garden was probably created in the fourth century CE, yet its iconology preserved some of the meaning of the earlier motif of the woman and the dragon. The Hesperides are mistresses of the dragon and the sacred tree, and in some versions of their myth are not accomplices to any deceit, but rather participants in an oracular event.62 A word about the parallel between the golden apples and the Golden Fleece is in order. In ancient Greece, as in other cultures, gold had a highly important role as an immortal metal that never fades or changes. In the context of burial rituals, gold was the symbol of eternity and of immortality, since it is not corrupted by the passage of time. Ogden maintained that the Greek word mēla, which means both “apples” and “sheep,” links the Colchis myth of the Golden Fleece to that of the Hesperides’ golden apple tree. This link was first suggested by Hellenistic historians, who insisted that the Hesperides did not guard apples, but rather watched over sheep. The tree of the Hesperides is granted to Hera as a wedding gift from Gaia, and Hera asks her to grow the tree in her garden beside Atlas. The garden of the Hesperides is situated on the border between the world of the living and the world of the dead, an appropriate location for the sisters of the Gorgons and the Graeae. Its apples can grant immortality, or more accurately function as the gateway between the world of the living and the Elysian Fields. The Golden Fleece similarly functions as the container of the soul of Phrixus, which haunts King Pelias in order to receive a proper burial. It is for this reason that Jason agrees to undertake the task, in order to grant the deceased hero’s soul eternal rest and therefore restore order and purify the defilement caused by the unsettled dead. Thus the Golden Fleece similarly functions as a gateway between the world of the living and the eternal realm of souls. Mackie, who studied the earliest fragments of artistic evidence and literary sources, focusing on Pindar’s Pythian, concluded that the initial myth told of Jason – apparently aided by the Golden Fleece – descending to the underworld and being resurrected, as symbolized by the image of him being swallowed by the dragon on the Douris Cup (fig. 3). The dragon, as the guardian of a treasure of gold, is also the guardian of a holy object used for healing, rejuvenation, and profound knowledge, as well as of the entrance to the underworld.63 62 “Hesperides,” in LIMC, V/2, figs. 29–41; “Herakles,” in LIMC, IV/2, figs. 2670–2728; E. Harrison, “Hesperides and Heroes,” pp. 76–82; Edwin O. James, The Tree of Life: An Archaeological Study (Leiden: Brill, 1966), pp. 194–197. 63 Pherecydes, in FGrH, Jacoby: F16c; Pindar, Pythian: 4.158–170; Agroutas, in Fragmenta historicorum graecorum (FHG), ed. Karl F. W. Müller (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1878–1885): Σ AR.4.1376a = 762.F3a; Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History: 4.26–27; Silius Italicus, Punica: 6.184; Asclepiades of Mendes, in FGrH, Jacoby: 617.F1; Ovid, Metamorphoses: 4.360–367 (Ovid identifies Atlas as the owner of the Hesperides’ree); Apollodorus, The Library: 2.5.11. John Tzetzes, “Chiliades (Book of Histories),” in Theoi Project, Aaron J. Atsma: https://www.theoi.com/Text/TzetzesChiliades2.html: 2.36.361–362; Gantz, Early Greek Myth, I,

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Demeter, the ancient Greek goddess of agriculture, is the patron of all vegetation growing from the earth, of animal husbandry, and of human fertility. Both the lamb and the apple are fruit of the earth (Gaia), and the recurrence of the lamb motif throughout the myth of Medea (the Golden Fleece, the ram who is killed and resurrected), thus offers a constant allusion to healing and resurrection.64 The theme of fruit reemerges in the myth of Kore-Persephone, the daughter of Demeter and Zeus. One day, Hades sees her picking flowers and falls in love with her, charging forward in his chariot, he kidnaps her and takes her to the underworld. Demeter scours the earth for her daughter and is distraught when she cannot find her. She then abandons her duty of fertilizing the land, bringing forth winter with its barrenness. Eventually, Demeter learns that Kore is captive in Hades’ realm and demands her release. While detained in the underworld, Kore is offered food and drink and declines, knowing the dangers of eating or drinking the fruits of the underworld, but finally gives into temptation and eats six pomegranate seeds. Zeus is then helpless, because whoever eats the fruits of the underworld must stay there, but the land is still barren and dying. Then a compromise is made: Kore will become the queen of the underworld under the name Persephone, reigning there for several months, and then will return to her mother as Kore for the remainder of the year (various sources suggest different time frames). When Kore is with Demeter the land flourishes, and when she is absent from her mother’s embrace, the land is barren. This myth reflects the symbolic importance of fruit in the ancient world, as having the power to grant life or death; in this case, Hades (as death) gives fruit to the maiden, which causes her to move between the realms of the living and the dead.65 pp. 6–7; Graves, The Greek Myths, II, pp. 216–217; Mackie, “The Earliest Jason: What’s in a Name?,” pp. 10–13; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 36, n. 60, 98; Ogden, “Medea as Mistress of Dragons,” p. 271. On Gold, see Maria Leach and Jerome Dried, Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend (New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1949–1950), p. 458; Adriaen De Vries, Dictionary of Symbols and Imagery (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1974), pp. 219–220. On the garden and the apples of the Hesperides as granting afterlife see E. James, The Tree of Life, p. 87, which shows the motif of the tree and the fruit to be an inherent part of the concept of “paradise” or Elysium in all Euro-Indo-African cultures. On the immortality aspect of the garden of the Hesperides and the golden apples, see E. Harrison, “Hesperides and Heroes,” pp. 79–80; Leach and Dried, Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend, p. 68; De Vries, Dictionary of Symbols and Imagery, p. 18; Shubhangana Atre, “Many Seeds Apple: The Fruit of Fertility,” Bulletin of the Deccan College Research Institute, 46 (1987), pp. 1–7, particularly p. 2; Noga Erez-Yodfat, “Inscribed Gold Lamella from the Hecht Museum,” Rosetta, 21 (2017), pp. 17–22. 64 It is worth noting that Jesus was described as a lamb in early Christianity. Revelation 5:6. For more information on the sign of the ram, see Ariel Golan, Myth and Symbol: Symbolism in Prehistoric Religions, trans. Rita Schneider-Teteruk (Jerusalem: Golan, 1991), pp. 79–92. 65 Hesiod, Theogony: 912–914; “To Demeter,” in The Homeric Hymns, trans. Jules Cashford, intro. and notes. Nicholas Richardson (London and New York: Penguin Books, 2003); Euripides, Helen, trans. James Michie and Colin Leach (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992): 1310–1318; Apollodorus, The Library: 1.5.3,

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Matthew Dillon surmises that Kore picking flowers alludes to her future marriage and the Anthesphoria (flower-bearing) Sicilian festival that was dedicated to her and performed by adolescent girls. Hera had a similar ritual performed in her honor in Argos. In Athens, the role of the kanephoros (bearer of the fruit basket) was played by maidens at the peak of their fertility. These young girls walked in festivals and funerals with baskets of fruit on their heads, as demonstrated by the figure of a girl on an Attic volute crater, dated to 450–400 BCE, in the Archaeological Museum of Ferrara. These rituals all forge an association between virginity, flowers, fruit and fertility.66 This association was also referred to in the previous chapter, in discussing Hesiod’s mention in the Theogony of the intercourse between Medusa and Poseidon, in his description of Poseidon as entering her garden. The fertility of the land and the eating of the fruit in the underworld is central to the Kore-Persephone myth. Persephone is literally the bride of death, and the fruit is her passageway to the underworld. The Eleusinian Mysteries, which were of great importance in ancient Greece and which were probably concerned with death and the afterlife, were dedicated to Demeter and Kore, while allotting, as I would like to contend, a crucial place to the myth of Persephone. In the Thesmophoria, abstinence from sex might be a symbolic emulation of Demeter, who did not fertilize the earth in the seven days she wandered in search of her daughter, emphasizing the connection between sexual intercourse, fertility, and agriculture. It is understandable why these two goddesses were chosen to be worshipped in preparation for death. The golden apples and the Golden Fleece, like the pomegranate, thus signified the fruits of death, enabling a passage to the afterlife. The dragon that guards them, a messenger of death and a gatekeeper of the underworld, is thus assimilated to the dragon Cerberus.67 Comparing images of the Hesperides with the serpent and the tree (figs. 36) to those of the woman serving as a pref iguration of the spring and the cave 2.5.12; Pausanias, Description of Greece: 1.38.3, 1.39.1, 9.31.9, with reference to Pamphos; Ovid, Fasti, trans. James George Frazer, rev. George P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014): 4.502–560; Ovid, Metamorphoses: 5.553–550; Hyginus, Fabulae: 147; Bacchylides, in PEG, Page: fr. 13. Gantz, Early Greek Myth, I, pp. 64–67; William C. Greene, “The Return of Persephone,” Classical Philology, 41.2 (1946), pp. 105–107; Walter Burkert, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), pp. 136–142. Burkert discusses this myth as representing a continuation of rituals in adoration of trees, and suggests that the tree is a symbol of the Great Mother goddesses; Nancy Bookidis and Ronald S. Stroud, Demeter and Persephone in Ancient Corinth (Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1987); Atre, “Many Seeds Apple,” pp. 1–7. 66 Aristophanes, “Lysistrata,” in Tragicorum graecorum fragmenta (TrGF), ed. Bruno Snell (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1971–2004), pp. 646–647. Bruce Lincoln, “The Rape of Persephone: A Greek Scenario of Women’s Initiation,” Harvard Theological Review, 72.3–4 (July–October 1979), pp. 223–235, particularly p. 224; Dillon, Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion, p. 62; Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess, pp. 3–5. 67 See note 63.

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Figure 35 – Hesperides and Hercules, 350–340 BCE, red-figure hydria, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (24.97.5) © Met, public domain.

(figs. 7, 9–10) reveals that the paradigm of the female figure as having access to profound knowledge is almost identical. Moreover, the paradigmatic alteration between the cave and the tree suggests a connection between the two signs and their meanings. In both iconographies, the artists created an association between the serpent and the female figure. In a pelike at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, the rounded shape of the fabric highlights the seated female torso and is mirrored in the serpentine double loops above and below her. In a hydria from the same museum (fig. 35), the white color of the serpent is duplicated in the paleness of the woman’s skin; although in this painting the artist is clearly a master of concealment (object behind objects), the serpent is not depicted as wrapped around the tree, but as a wave in front of the tree, perhaps in order to stress its aquatic

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nature. The iconography of Medea using a phiale to feed the Colchis dragon that is coiled around a tree is a representational choice that alludes to the nature of the interaction between Medea and the dragon and their connection to the afterlife, healing, and profound knowledge. Medea is repeatedly conceptualized as a holy woman performing sacred acts and granting Jason a doorway to eternity. Having been presented as sacred, her transgressions are graver still; she betrays the gods as well as the nomos (law, custom). This treason is the most salient iconographic aspect of the myth of Medea in Colchis, and continues to inform the meaning of her visual representation in the context of her other myths.

Serpents in the Soul: Medea in Corinth The most important and frequently illustrated iconography of Medea is related to Euripides’ description of her time in Corinth, and to the images pertaining to this story. This iconography forges a connection between the dragon-driven chariot that is repeatedly depicted in this scene and the theme of infanticide. Although there exists no Attic image of this scene, the many southern-Italian vase paintings that do depict it lead to the conclusion that the source for these paintings was probably displayed in Athens. One of the most important images in the context of this analysis is the Cleveland Medea calyx crater (fig. 29), which is considered to mirror the narrative of Euripides’s Medea. It depicts Medea in Oriental clothing, which she presumably wore in the final act of the play, riding a sun-dragon chariot. Her slaughtered children lie below her on an altar, mourned by their nurse. Jason looks helplessly at Medea, while on the other side of the scene a male figure gestures with his hands in shock toward his head. Between Jason and the altar are a lamb and an amphora. Martin Revermann identifies the scene on the other side of the vase as another depiction of the murder of a child described in Euripides’s tragedy Telephus. Both sides of the vase present the theme of infanticide, and in both the children are laid upon an altar.68 Two hideous Erinyes crown the scene, although Taplin claims that because they are old and ugly, they must be demons of vengeance. Sourvinou-Inwood argues 68 Dietrich Von Bothmer and Jane M. Cody, Wealth of the Ancient World: The Nelson Bunker Hunt and William Herbert Hunt Collections (Fort Worth: Kimbell Art Museum, 1983), pp. 76–79; Taplin, Comic Angels, pp. 22–29; Sourvinou-Inwood, “Medea at a Shifting Distance,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, p. 269; Revermann, “The ‘Cleveland Medea’ Calyx Crater,” p. 3; Taplin, Pots and Plays, p. 123. On artistic inspiration derived from Euripides’s Medea, see Arthur D. Trendall and T. B. L. Webster, Illustrations of Greek Drama (London: Phaidon, 1971), p. 72; Frank Brommer, Theseus: Die Taten des griechishen Helden in der antiken Kunst und Literatur (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1982), p. 134; Sourvinou-Inwood, “Medea at a Shifting Distance,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, p. 279; Taplin, Pots and Plays, pp. 117–125.

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that the Erinyes are a typical southern-Italian attribute – executors, as is Medea, of Jason’s well-deserved punishment. Revermann, on the other hand, recalls Jason’s final words in Euripides’s Medea, as he calls upon the Erinyes to exact justice on his behalf. The connection between Medea and the Erinyes elaborated upon in the following discussion reveals that their appearance in this represented scene is not arbitrary. The location of the children on the altar is different than their location in Euripides’ play, where they remain offstage. In the play, Medea also has a festival dedicated to her sons, which indicates the playwright’s familiarity with Medea’s local Corinth myth. The iconography of the children on an altar is central to artistic representations of this theme, underscoring the centrality of sacrifice for purification and re-sanctification in the Medea myth.69 Sourvinou-Inwood discusses several images of Medea’s murdered children depicted on an altar, such as one on an Apulian volute crater (fig. 30) that portrays Medea about to stab a child in its back on an altar, and another on a Campanian neck amphora, dated to 330 BCE, in the Museum of National Archaeology, Paris, which depicts a dead child on an alter and also includes the ghost of Aietes. Dated to that same time is a Campanian neck amphora in the Louvre Museum, Paris, which shows the murder of a single child taking place in Apollo’s sanctuary. One intriguing painting appears on an Apulian volute crater by the Darius Painter (fig. 36), in which Medea appears alongside an older man, perhaps a paidagogos (teacher), in a sanctuary inscribed with the words “Eleusis. To Heron.” Flanking the sanctuary on one side are the two goddesses of the Eleusinian festivals – Demeter and Kore-Persephone – while Athena, Nike, and the Dioscuri, all holding Eleusinian torches, appear on the other side. Two boys, very much alive, sit on an altar below, while Hercules and Iris converse alongside them. Schmidt claims that the boys are not the children of Medea but rather of Hercules, based on a myth that recounts how Medea cures Hercules from madness after he killed his sons.70 In light of this interpretation, Medea is represented here as a fertility demon that can heal the mind and protect children in the afterlife. Harrison’s interpretation of the Meidias Painter’s hydria proposes that Hercules is portrayed alongside the Hesperides and with Medea, and sees all of these female figures as allegorical representations of the eternal youth granted to heroes. Sourvinou-Inwood suspects that this particular image of Medea is a warning that any good woman can turn bad. By contrast, Evelyn B. Harrison interprets this iconography as depicting salvation for the souls of heroes and as a symbolic representation of the Elysian Fields. Harrison sees Medea as a 69 Euripides, Medea: 1389–1390. Taplin, Comic Angels, p. 22; Sourvinou-Inwood, “Medea at a Shifting Distance,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, p. 272; Revermann, “The ‘Cleveland Medea’,” pp. 4–6, 8–11. 70 Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History: 4.54.7, 55.4, probably after Euripides’s lost Hercules.

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Figure 36 – Darius Painter, Medea and the “Eleusis. To Heron”, 340–330 BCE, Apulian red-figure volute crater, Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey (83.13) © Art.Resource.

symbol of immortality and as alluding to marriage. Among the figures depicted in this vase painting is Hygieia, with her name inscribed on the vase. This is one of the earliest representations of Hygieia, but she is not depicted in accordance with her conventional iconography of feeding the serpent. The connection between

Medea – The Holy Woman and the Witch 

Medea and the Hesperides is well attested to. The iconography of the Hesperides as tending to Ladon is already found on the Syracuse Painter’s hydria, dated to ca. 470–460 BCE, now in the Krannert Art Museum in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. Only from ca. 380 BCE onward, however, do they adopt, together with Medea, the pose of offering the phiale (sacrificial plate) to the dragon.71 Harrison suggests the same interpretation for the three-figured relief of Hercules and the Hesperides, which was formerly part of the Altar for the Twelve Gods from the Athenian Agora. This altar also depicts the scene of Medea and the daughters of Pelias. I suggest that in the Darius Painter’s painting (fig. 36), Medea forges a conceptual association with the Eleusinian Mystery, taking part in the ritual by offering a passage to the Elysian Fields, as emphasized by the living children. Whether the children belong to Medea or to Hercules, they have been offered salvation in the afterlife. This interpretation of the painting takes into consideration the function of the dragon established in this study and the sacred union between women and dragons, alongside the meaning of the Colchis Medea established earlier – that of offering a stable basis for a visual and conceptual connection between Medea, whose figure is generally negative in association with children, and the themes of afterlife, healing, and salvation.72 Nonetheless, in order to fully understand the meaning of the image of infanticide on an altar, we need to follow the evolution of this image over time, and to examine its connection to the dragon-driven chariot. The iconography of Medea driving her dragon chariot became popular in the fourth century BCE. A Lucannian hydria by the Policoro Painter, dating to approximately the same period as the Cleveland Medea and now in the Policoro National Museum, Italy, portrays Medea on a chariot driven by dragons and flanked by Aphrodite and Eros, thus emphasizing their role in the Colchis myth. The result of Medea and Jason’s initial transgression is represented in this image by the children’s corpses lying on the ground. This scene and the scene on the Darius Painter’s Apulian amphora from Ruvo, dated to about 340–330 BCE, and now in the Naples National Museum, 71 Homer A. Thompson, “The Pedimental Sculpture of the Hephaisteion,” Hesperia: Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 18.3 (1949), pp. 230–268, particularly p. 254, suggests that this is a representation of Athena Hygieia; Graves, The Greek Myths, II, pp. 144–152; E. Harrison, “Hesperides and Heroes”; Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, I/2, pp. 2594–2603; Sourvinou-Inwood, “Medea at a Shifting Distance,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 275–278; Ogden, “Medea as Mistress of Dragons,” p. 269. 72 Arthur D. Trendall, The Red-Figured Vases of Lucania, Campania and Sicily (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), I, p. 325, fig. 739; Arthur D. Trendall, Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Museum, 1984), XLIII/1, 5ff (a. O. 8): identified the children as Medea’s. E. Harrison, “Hesperides and Heroes,” pp. 76–82; Margot Schmidt, “Medea und Herakles, zwei tragische Kindermörder,” in Studien zur Mythologie und Vasenmalerei, eds. Elke Böhr and Wolfram Martini (Mainz am Rhein: Von Zabern, 1986), pp. 169–174; Sourvinou-Inwood, “Medea at a Shifting Distance,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 272–273, 278–279; Griffiths, Medea, pp. 50–51.

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probably both emulated the same earlier artwork. According to Cook, the Darius Painter’s Apulian amphora resembles later Medea sarcophagi due to the recurrent depiction of one boy’s corpse on the ground and another corpse alongside Medea in her chariot. Another remnant of this iconography is a bell-krater in the Hermitage Museum dated to the same period, which depicts Medea driving her two-dragon chariot and holding her dead children, one in each arm. Sourvinou-Inwood claims that these images stress the distance of Medea, the divine being, from Jason and his children. Although the depictions of the children in the chariot with Medea undermine this assumption, I do agree that the distance between Medea and Jason is constantly underscored. Taplin asserts that on the Policoro Painter’s hydria, Medea appears in close proximity to Jason, whereas on the Cleveland Krater (fig. 29) she is distant and radiant, in a manner accentuating her divine aspects. Ogden doubts that there is any connection between the motif of Medea in the dragon chariot and that of Triptolemos or Demeter in their dragon-driven chariots. Donald J. Mastronarde, on the other hand, sees the iconographic similarities as obvious. I lean toward Mastronarde’s argument concerning a connection between Medea and Demeter or Triptolemos, Demeter’s ambassador, while asserting that the dragon, as demonstrated in the previous chapters, was a consistent attribute of Great Mother goddesses of fertility. I thus contend that Medea is presented in the process of becoming a goddess, and is especially related to Demeter due to her association with fertility and mortality, and above all of children.73 Cook believes that since the figure is named Oistros (frenzy) in an inscription, the Campanian crater from Canossa (fig. 30) does not portray Triptolemos, but rather Medea’s charioteer and a personification of Medea’s state of mind. I suggest, however, that even in the absence of a direct allusion to Triptolemos, this figure forges an association between the image of Medea and that of Demeter; Medea is thus depicted as both a fertility goddess and a fertility demon, and hence possesses both the power to rejuvenate and the power to destroy, which are equally important. This dualistic quality is central to her character and to the meaning of the motif. By controlling the guardian dragon, she governs the sacred Golden Fleece, is able to provide accurate prophecies, has deep knowledge of herbs that can kill and rejuvenate, and can converse with dragons. In light of these characteristics, Nita Krevans relates Medea to the myths of city-founding heroes, while stressing the gendered aspect of these myths, in which the land is often a virgin female and the hero is a conqueror. Medea is unsettlingly both: she is a catalyst for the founding of 73 Euripides, Medea: 377–378.1317. A. Cook, Zeus, I, pp. 211–240, 249–250; Gerda Schwartz, Triptolemos: Ikonographie einer Agrar und Mysteriengottheit; Tetsuhiro Hayashi, Bedeutung und wandel des Triptolemosbildes (Würzburg: Konrad Triltsch, 1992); Sourvinou-Inwood, “Medea at a Shifting Distance,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 256–261; Taplin, Pots and Plays, p. 123; Ogden, “Medea as Mistress of Dragons,” p. 268; Ogden, Drakōn, p. 200.

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cities, which is typically a male role, and a deliverer of true prophecies concerning the establishment of several cities. In other cases, she is the kidnapped maiden, playing the female role in foundation myths. According to Pindar, Medea was empowered by Apollo and the Delphic Oracle, and acts in accordance with her divine origin. Sometimes she is even described as transgender, thus also pushing gender boundaries. The iconography of Medea together with King Pelias further highlights her connection to the Delphic Oracle by constantly depicting the bowl of the ram’s rejuvenation as the Delphic Pythia’s tripod. It has already been suggested that the tripod was originally a bowl, in which a goat or a lamb was sacrificed, later becoming the seat of both the Pythia and of Apollo. The visual association of the two bowls thus serves to underscore Medea’s prophetic abilities. Particularly when riding the dragon-driven chariot, Medea is represented with the features of a Great Mother goddess such as Demeter – who, along with her disciple Triptolomos, is visualized as riding a dragon-driven chariot, such as that depicted on the sarcophagi in the Uffizi Galleries, Florence (fig. 14). Dionysius Scytobrachion’s account chronicles Medea’s creation of magical phantom dragons to be harnessed to Artemis’ dragons-driven chariot. Athena is also depicted in a dragon-driven chariot as part of the depiction of the Paridis Iudicium on a pyxidendeckel dated to ca. 430 BCE, now in the Copenhagen National Museum, and as has been demonstrated earlier in this book. She is also consistently associated with dragons.74 The relationship between Medea and the dragon is a dominant aspect of the myth. She drives a dragon chariot, tends to but also betrays the Colchis dragon, and encounters and consults with other snakes or dragons, thus leading to the creation of an analogy between Medea and the dragon. Although dragons in ancient Greece and Rome were not considered evil by nature, they could act in evil ways, as when preventing a hero from reaching a treasure that they have been entrusted to protect by a god; although they functioned as protectors, they could kill as well. They were also viewed as capable of moving between spheres, as attested to by Ovid in his description of Medea’s dragon-driven chariot. The assimilation of dragons to Medea thus also characterizes her as a trickster, presenting them as either beneficial or malevolent avatars.75 74 Pindar, Pythian: 4.19–40; Dionysius Scytobrachion, in FGrH, Jacoby: 4.15. Daremberg and Saglio, “Draco,” in Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, p. 410; A. Cook, Zeus, I, pp. 228–231, 252, III, p. 769, fig. 566; Charles Segal, Pindar’s Mythmaking: The Fourth Pythian Ode (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 76–77, 139–145, 182–183; Karl Kerényi, Athene: Virgin and Mother in Geek Religion (Dallas: Spring, 1988); Krevans, “Medea as Foundation-Heroine,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 71–82; S. Johnston, “Corinthian Medea and the Cult of Hera Akraia,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 59–67; Ogden, “Medea as Mistress of Dragons,” p. 274; Ogden, Drakōn, p. 197. 75 Ovid, Metamorphoses: 7.219–237.

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Figure 37 – Medea and her Children, 60–79 CE, fourth-style fresco from the house of Dioscuri in Pompeii, Naples National Museum (No. 8977) © Olivierw, public domain, Wikimedia.

Roman depictions of Medea are crucially important for this argument. The iconography of Medea in her two-dragon chariot is evident in Etruscan art as early as the fourth century BCE, as demonstrated by a sculpture fragment in the Academic Art Museum in Bonn. This work depicts Medea alongside part of a dead child’s body and a part of a chariot, with a snake in her hands. Some terracotta fragments, such as the one in

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the Archaeological Civic Museum, Bologna, presumably dating to the fourth–second centuries BCE, also represent Medea with her two-dragon chariot. During this period, there emerged an additional iconography that shows Medea with her two children or with one child who is still alive, as seen in a first-century BCE gem-ring stone in the Archaeological Museum, Florence, and in a fresco from Pompeii, dated to 60–79 CE, now in the Naples National Museum (fig. 37), among other images. Medea usually holds a sword to stress her intent, but she is still portrayed in a moment of contemplation. During the same period, there is also a continuation of the iconography that presents her killing her children, as exemplified by a gem-ring stone in the British Museum. The portrayal of this iconography on amulets suggests that they may have been thought to have magical powers, and that the aim of these objects was to protect children against maleficent demons. Johnston’s association of Medea’s image with a terrifying group of fertility demons reinforces the probability of her representation as an apotropaic image meant to dispel fertility demons like herself.76 It is quite remarkable that this iconography of Medea contemplating the killing of her children was rather popular in Pompeii. Laura Abrahamsen explains this popularity by relating it to Seneca’s play Medea and to the debate in Rome at the time about marriage as a legal union, and by presenting Medea’s cold and calculated decision as having been made under the pressure she experienced as an ex-wife. Seneca’s Medea, according to this interpretation, was written in support of laws and norms that were intended to uphold the noble houses of Rome. As already noted in the previous chapter, Roman fertility laws were meant to ensure the Roman nobility’s production of offspring. Although Medea, as a foreign-born wife, cannot produce respectable offspring who will continue Jason’s noble lineage, he nonetheless commits himself to her (at least for a time), evincing the historical reality of the early Roman Imperial period, when noblemen often married foreign wives who were not suitable to produce noble children.77 In plays and myths about Medea, the theme of marriage and household is central, much as it is in the myth of Andromeda. Yet unlike Andromeda, who represents the character of “the good wife,” Medea represents the character of “the bad wife.” Although both Andromeda and Medea are both princesses, the former obtained her father’s approval for her marriage, whereas 76 “Medea,” in LIMC, VI/2, figs. 8–24, unsure: 25–28, 33–33a, 39–45; Johnston, “Corinthian Medea and the Cult of Hera Akraia,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 57–61. 77 On the legal aspects of marriage in Rome, see Gillian Clark, “Roman Women,” Greece and Rome, 28.2 (October 1981), pp. 193–212; Jane F. Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society (London: Croom Helm, 1986), pp. 31–116; Richard A. Bauman, Women and Politics in Ancient Rome (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 105–108; Kate Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 1–17; Laura Abrahamsen, “Roman Marriage Law and the Conflict of Seneca’s ‘Medea’,” Quaderni urbinati di cultura classica, 62.2 (1999), pp. 107–121; Milnor, Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus.

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the latter betrayed her father. Moreover, unlike Andromeda, Medea maintains an intimate relationship with the dragon even while she is married. The Metamorphoses attends at length to the myth of Jason and Medea. Ovid prosaically describes the process of planning the potion for the rejuvenation of Jason’s father, and notes how, while calling on Hecate’s assistance, Medea performs acts of “the witch.” She waits for the full moon, and performs her deeds in the realm of “the agents of the night” – the realm of dangerous beings. As noted, Medea is also a descendant of the sun god Helios, and is thus able to harness the element of fire. By loosening her hair, exposing her shoulders, walking barefoot, and parting her lips, the last a sign of speech-magic and of sexual promiscuity and madness, she mimics the behavior of the Maenads/Bacchantes, who are part of the Dionysus/ Bacchus entourage. The Maenads sometimes hold snakes in their hands, interpreted as a sign of Dionysus’ eschatological and chthonian aspects. After Medea collects herbs and consults the agents of the night, she rides her two-dragon chariot over many lands. When plotting to kill Theseus, Medea descends to the underworld and takes the venom of the dragon Cerberus. As these events demonstrate, Medea’s path is strewn with dragons that come to her aid.78 The serpent is consistently represented as an attribute of witches in Roman literature, as in Horace’s description of the witch Canidia with her “locks and disheveled head entwined with short vipers.” Lucan uses the same description for the witch Erictho: “She looped up her bristling locks with festooned vipers.” Dragons are Medea’s attributes.79 78 Ovid, Metamorphoses: 7.192–218, 258, 408–416. Ruth E. Harder, Die Frauenrollen bei Euripides: Untersuchungen zu “Alkestis,” “Medeia,” “Hekabe,” “Erechtheus,” “Elektra,” “Troades” und “Iphigeneia in Aulis” (Stuttgart: M. und P. Verl. für Wissenschaft und Forschung, 1993), p. 356; Luschnig, Granddaughter of the Sun, pp. 63–66. On the definition of “agents of the night,” see Ogden, Night’s Black Agents, p. 2 (after Shakespeare). On speech-magic, see Charles Segal, Dionysiac Poetics and Euripides’ Bacchae (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 174–177; Francois Lissarrague, “The Sexual Life of Satyrs,” in Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World, eds. David M. Halperin, John J. Winkle, and Froma I. Zeitlin (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 53–81; Barbette S. Spaeth, “From Goddess to Hag,” in Daughters of Hecate: Women and Magic in the Ancient World, ed. Kimberly B. Stratton (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 41. On the artistic depiction of the Maenads, see note 92. On the eschatological aspects of Dionysus, see Richard Seaford, Dionysos (London: Routledge, 2006); Hugh Bowden, Mystery Cults of the Ancient World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), pp. 105–136; Yulia Ustinova, Divine Mania: Alteration of Consciousness in Ancient Greece (London: Routledge, 2018). On the Greek medical connection between the mouth and the womb and the sexuality of women, see Holt Parker, “Women and Medicine,” in A Companion to Women in the Ancient World, eds. Sharon L. James and Sheila Dillon (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), p. 112. On Cerberus, see Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, pp. 63–74; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 104–115. 79 Lucan, The Civil War (Pharsalia), ed. and trans. James D. Duff (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 6.518; Horace, Odes and Epodes, ed. and trans. Niall Rudd (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 5.15–16.

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Seneca’s Medea enumerates the many snakes and cosmic dragons with which Medea interacts, including the Colchis dragon, in order to create the potion intended to kill Creusea: Drawn by her magic spells the scaly ones slip from their holes. They are here. Here a savage serpent slithers its massive bulk, its forked tongue darting to and from; it looks for victims whom it may kill. But hearing her voice, it stops, plaits its swollen body into a heap of knots, and piles them up in coils. Now she says: “From the earth come only minor evils, weaker weapons. I shall search the sky for poison. Now, now the time has come to start something grander than ordinary deceit. Let the Dragon descend, which lies like a rushing stream, here let him come, whose massive coils touch the Bears, those two wild beasts, the Great Bear and the Small, (Greek sailors use the Great Bear, Tyrians use the Small) and let the Serpent Holder at last release his grip, and pour out venom. Let Python come at my call, who dared provoke Diana and Apollo, the twin gods. And let the Hydra come; let every snake, mown down by Hercules, return, and heal its own death wound. And you, abandon Colchis, my always-wakeful Dragon, come to me; you were the first serpent I charmed to sleep.80

Seneca describes Medea the witch as consorting with and assisted by dragons. The cosmic dragons are numerous, and allude to the different spheres between which Medea travels. Even the Colchis dragon that she initially harmed is recruited to this end. Significantly, many constellations are named after great dragons such as Ketos, Ladon, and Draco, which thus become elevated beings moving in the celestial spheres of the constellations, and imbuing acts of murder and infanticide with cosmic meaning and symbolism.81 80 Seneca, Medea: 685–704. 81 Plotinus, Porphyry on the Life of Plotinus; Ennead I, trans. Arthur H. Armstrong (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 3.1.5. Martha C. Nussbaum, “Serpents in the Soul: A Reading of Seneca’s Medea,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 219–252, particularly p. 235.

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The association of witches with serpents is already mentioned in a fragment of Sophocles’ play Rhizotomoi, which has endured in the scholium on Apollonios Rhodius’s Argonautica. Sophocles is most likely referring to Medea, and describes Hecate as having a snake woven in her hair: “Lord sun and holy fire, sword of Hecate of the roads, which she carries over Olympus as she attends and as she traverses the sacred crossroads of the land, crowned with oak and the woven coils of snakes, falling on her shoulders.” This description associates Hecate with both Athena and Medusa, and stresses her liminal aspects as a protector of crossroads, while giving rise to the association between witches as represented by their goddesses, and serpents, which is much older than Ovid and Seneca.82 The Erinyes/Furies also have snakes as their consistent attributes, as shown in an Etruscan bronze statue dated to the fourth century BCE, now in the British Museum, and an Attic lekythos from Sicily, now in the Wagner Museum in Würzburg, Germany. Euripides compared Medea to the Eriny when she murdered her children: “This wretched Eriny made murderous by the spirits of vengeance.”83 Martha C. Nussbaum demonstrates how at the beginning of Seneca’s play, Medea is associated with the Furies, as justly feeling angry for being wronged. His description of the furies is similar to that of Hecate: they appear with serpents in their hair, and have a connection to fire. The similarity between the Furies and Medea as she carries out her children’s sentence is remarkable:84 Now let me curse: Come to me now, O vengeful Furies, punishers of sinners, wild in your hair with serpents running free, holding black torches in your bloody hands … Let their father lose their kisses, their mother has already lost them. Again, my anger grows, 82 Sophocles, Rhizotomoi, in TrGF, Snell: fr. 535; Apollonios, Argonautica: 3.1214. Ogden, Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts, p. 83. 83 Euripides, Medea: 1259–1260. 84 Nussbaum, “Serpents in the Soul,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, p. 224; Taplin, Pots and Plays, p. 121. On the Erinyes, see “Erinys,” in LIMC, III/2, fig. 825–843; Mitropoulou, Deities and Heroes in the Form of Snakes, pp. 43–44; Michael Junge, Untersuchungen zur Ikonographie der Erinys in der griechischen Kunst (Kiel: Universität Kiel, 1983); Andrew L. Brown, “Eumenides in Greek Tragedy,” Classical Quarterly, 34.2 (1984), pp. 260–281; Albert Henrichs, “Anonymity and Polarity: Unknown Gods and Nameless Altars at the Areopagos,” Illinois Classical Studies, 19 (January 1994), pp. 27–58, particularly p. 27; Hugh Lloyd-Jones, “Erinyes, Semnai Theai, Eumenides,” in Owls to Athens: Essays on Classical Subjects Presented to Sir Kenneth Dover, ed. Elizabeth M. Craik (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 203–211; Maria L. Sancassano, Il serpent e le sue immagini: Il motivo del serpent nel poesia greca dall’Iliade all’Orestea (Como: New Press, 1997), pp. 159–186; Gantz, Early Greek Myth, pp. 13–14, 526, 679; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 254–259.

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my hatred boils. My ancient Fury seeks my reluctant hands again—anger, I follow your lead.85

Once again, one can note the connection between serpents and the hair of controversial female divinities such as Hecate, Medusa, and the Furies, as well as their association with fire. The serpentine hair is an indication of their dangerous, liminal nature, and of their dual and treacherous character, which can potentially cause them to harm humans. In a similar manner, Medea is constantly described as loosening her hair, thus forming a symbolic association between serpentine female hair and a dangerous personality, which is paralleled by her interaction with dragons, her dragon-driven chariot, and her control over serpents. The discussion of witches in the current study aligns itself with Barbette S. Spaeth’s definition of the “witch” and of “magic.” A witch is a woman who is self- or socially proclaimed as using unsanctioned supernatural powers and tools. Ogden’s definition of magic and witchcraft undermines previous definitions, underscoring the fine line between concepts of medicine, philosophy of the soul, and witchcraft in the ancient world. Medea, as the prototype of the witch, consorts with snakes and serves as an oracle – acts that locate her outside the social structure. Her dragon’s chariot literally steers her outside the social structure and the social order – which, as suggested by Jeffrey J. Cohen, is the location occupied by monsters. In Ovid’s account, her rituals of witchcraft are aimed at rejuvenating Jason’s father, Aeson; yet although she performs a beneficial act, it nonetheless introduces changes to the order of nature, and therefore defies the will of the gods. Furthermore, she uses that same knowledge to mislead Pelias’ daughters into killing their father. Medea is therefore identified as a witch, and as such represents the social concern with the dual nature of witches and healers, which enables them to both heal and kill.86 In Archaic Greece, the attitude toward Asclepius was controversial if not altogether negative, as is evident in Sextus Empiricus’ Against the Grammarians,87 85 Seneca, Medea: 12–15, 950–953. Helen Slaney, Seneca: Medea (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019), p. 86. 86 Pindar, Nemean Odes; Isthmian Odes; Fragments, vol. II of Pindar, ed. and trans. William H. Race (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 3.54. Mackie, “The Earliest Jason: What’s in a Name?”; Spaeth, “From Goddess to Hag,” in Daughters of Hecate, Stratton, pp. 41–42. Spaeth is relying on the entry “witch” in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000). Ogden, Night’s Black Agents, pp. 3–6. For the anthropological definition of witches and sorcerers, see Max G. Marwick, ed., Witchcraft and Sorcery: Selected Readings (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982), pp. 11–19, 41–43, 44–47. For the location of monsters outside the social structure and order, see Jeffrey J. Cohen, ed., Monster Theory: Reading Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), pp. 3–25; Asa S. Mittman and Marcus Hensel, eds., Classic Readings on Monster Theory: Demonstrare (Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2018), pp. 61–75. 87 Sextus Empiricus, Against the Grammarians, trans, and intro. David L. Blank (Oxford: Clarendon Pr., 1998): 260–262.

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which also refers to the lost ninth book of Phylarchus’ History. The concept of manipulating fate by unnatural means was regarded as dangerous. Mackie demonstrates that in Archaic times, a hero was considered a healer of a community, and assumes that over time Asclepius gained a more positive reputation due to the concept that the manipulation of fate was split into good magic, which was considered a form of healing, and bad magic, which was viewed as witchcraft. In the Medea myth, Jason is neglected as a healer, while Medea assumes the role of the magician: a healer and a witch. The Pelian episode, which is attested to in vase paintings as early as the mid-seventh century BCE, clearly expresses the dualistic attitude toward magic: although this is the moment in the narrative where Medea performs an act of rejuvenation, the viewer has knowledge of the future events, which transform the seemingly beneficial scene into a warning of the danger to come, stressing that the truth is not always visible to the eye. In Roman culture, Jason came to be viewed as the rational male, whose decisionmaking process is guided entirely by ambition and strategy, whereas Medea was viewed as representing the type of emotional and irrational thinking that leads to destruction and agony.88 Nussbaum’s chapter “Serpents in the Soul” investigates Seneca’s philosophical view of Medea’s story, and describes the serpents in the play as manifestations of Medea’s burning and uncontrolled rage. The association between Medea’s feelings and the serpents transforms the dragon chariot into an allegory for her soul. Medea’s association with the dragon is consistent with depictions of goddesses such as Athena, Hecate, and Isis, and was meant to augment her strength. Ogden states that it takes a dragon to defeat a dragon, presenting as evidence many mythical events in which a hero or a god must assume the guise of a dragon in order to defeat one. Only in Corinth does Medea form an alliance with dragons rather than overthrowing them. Even more interesting is Ogden’s assertion that Marsi men were taught by Medea, given that Medea’s depictions are remarkably close to those of the ancient Marsi snake goddess Angitia. The Marsi was a tribe that apparently adopted the physical qualities of snakes in order to cure their bites. Eventually, Medea in particular and witches in general came to be viewed as associating themselves with snakes in order to enlist their power to heal or kill. Witches were also believed to adopt a snake’s double moral standard, as in their usage of menstrual blood, which was presumed to inflict disease and death but also protected crops from pests, killed parasites in the human body, and even deflected storms. Thus, witches could use substances 88 Pindar, Pythian: 3.6–8. Vojatzi, Frühe Argonautenbilder, pp. 11–22; Nussbaum, “Serpents in the Soul,” in, Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston; Spaeth, “From Goddess to Hag,” in Daughters of Hecate, Stratton, pp. 41–70.

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considered dangerous and taboo in order to assist in healing.89 Medea’s character points to the more general stereotypical association of women with dragons and oracular beings, as well as with the wilderness and with irrational and antisocial behaviors. As healers, women, and particularly “old women,” were usually in possession of knowledge concerning the healing power of herbs. Women in general were viewed as cunning, untrustworthy, and morally inferior beings controlled by their emotions – a state medically termed hysteria, or the “wondering womb,” which was considered to even make them capable of killing their children in an outburst of rage. Medea is a symbol of this treacherous aspect of women’s soul, which lurks under the surface. Her consultation with the serpents is a metaphor for the internal rage percolating within her, waiting to erupt.90 Medea’s good and evil acts exhibit the symbolic duality not only of women, but also of dragons. Dragons can inflict evil on anyone crossing their path, innocent or not, but can also protect and heal. This duality is reflected in Medea’s varied appearances in her myth sequence: she is a holy virgin and a priestess, yet imposes sleep on her dragon; she is a teacher of heroes; she is a mother and a faithful wife, but also a murderer and a perpetrator of infanticide; she commits crimes, but also gains an apotheosis, and divine beings assist her in her murderous acts. Medea is also notable for her androgynous nature, as well as her connection to the sun and fire. In the iconographic type that was popular in Pompeii and beyond (fig. 37), Medea is identified by her sword. This masculine symbol in the 89 Pauline Ripat, “Roman Women, Wise Women, and Witches,” Phoenix, 70.1–2 (Spring–Summer 2016), pp. 104–128, particularly pp. 110–111. 90 Nussbaum, “Serpents in the Soul,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston; Yulia Ustinova, Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind: Descending Underground in the Search for Ultimate Truth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 55–68; Ogden, “Medea as Mistress of Dragons,” p. 275; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 213–217. On women and pharmacology in ancient cultures, see Armand Delatte, Herbarius: Recherches sur le cérémonial usité chez les anciens pour la cueillette des simples et des plantes magiques (Liége: Faculte de Philosophie et Lettres, 1938), pp. 1–6; John Scarborough, “The Pharmacology of Sacred Plants, Herbs, and Roots,” in Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion, eds. Christopher A. Faraone and Dirk Obbink (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 138–174, particularly p. 140, which reserves judgment as to whether pharmacology was initially an occupation identified with women. For related medical and social studies of women in ancient cultures, see Bennett Simon, Mind and Madness in Ancient Greece: The Classical Roots of Modern Psychiatry (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978); Lefkowitz, Heroines and Hysterics; Paola Manuli, “Donne masculine, femmine sterili, vergini perpetue: La ginecologia greca tra Ippocrate e Sorano,” in Madre materia: Sociologia e biologia della Donna Greca, eds. Silvia Campese, Paola Manuli and Giulia Sissa (Turin: Boringhieri, 1983), pp. 149–192; Hanson, “The Medical Writers’ Woman,” in Before Sexuality, eds. Halperin, J. Winkler and Zeitlin, pp. 319–321; Lesley Dean-Jones, Women’s Bodies in Classical Greek Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 69–77; Mark S. Micale, Approaching Hysteria: Disease and Its Interpretations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995); Barbara K. Gold, “‘The House I Live in Is Not My Own’: Women’s Bodies in Juvenal’s Satires,” Arethusa, 31.3 (1998), pp. 368–386; H. Parker, “Women and Medicine,” in A Companion to Women in the Ancient World, eds. James and Dillon (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), pp. 112–114.

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hand of a woman who is not (yet) a goddess was unusual, and shows Medea to be a female heroine who crosses gender boundaries. Ogden is uncomfortable with the attribution of the last sentence of Sophocles’s fragment to Medea – “After he (she) had melted a doll [koros] with fire” – even though the fragment minutely describes Medea’s potion-making. He opines that “the subject of the melting is masculine and cannot therefore be Medea.” By contrast, this fragment is recognized here as one of many pieces of evidence pointing to Medea’s dualistic and androgynous character, which blurs the line between the genders. The association of the sun and fire with Medea is unusual in that these elements were typically associated with masculinity, as in Aristotle’s theory of the elements, in which the masculine is hot and dry and the feminine is cold and moist.91 In this sense, her figure is key to addressing the patriarchal fear of challenges to gender boundaries, a theme that is also connected to Medea’s alliance with fire.92 Significantly, this androgynous character is evident in important Greek goddesses, such as Athena and Artemis. Athena was already established as a mistress of dragons and as riding the dragon driven chariot, and is a warrior goddess. She embodies contradictory gender roles that can exist in the realm of the gods but not in the human realm.93 A dragon chariot is also mentioned in a fragment from Euripides that allegorizes the sun as a dragon-driven chariot. According to Beck’s analysis, the sketches of the lost monument of the Mithras Ottaviano Zeno portray connections between the dragon and the Leontocephaline – the Mithraic god Saturnus-Aion, whose image depicts a serpent encircling a winged human body with a lion’s head (Mithras’ cult was extremely popular in Rome). Beck argues that the lion is a symbol of fire and the sun, thus pointing to a deep and ancient connection between sun, fire and serpents. 91 Mary A. C. Horowitz, “Aristotle and Woman,” Journal of the History of Biology, 9.2 (1976), pp. 183–213. 92 Sophocles, “Rhizotomoi,” in TrGF, Snell: fr. 536. Ogden, Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts, p. 83. On Medea as a heroine, see Elizabeth B. Bongie, “Heroic Elements in the Medea of Euripides,” Transactions of the American Philological Association, 107 (1977), pp. 27–56; Knox, “The Medea of Euripides,” p. 293; Krevans, “Medea as Foundation-Heroine,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 71–82. On Medea’s androgynous nature, see Helene P. Foley, “Medea’s Divided Self,” Classical Antiquity, 8.1 (April 1989), pp. 61–85; Rush Rehm, “‘Medea’ and the λόϒοϛ of the Heroic,” Eranos, 87.2 (1989), pp. 97–115; Shirley A. Barlow, “Stereotype and Reversal in Euripides’ Medea,” Greece and Rome, 36.2 (1989), pp. 158–171. 93 “Paridis iudicium,” in LIMC, VII/2 fig. 40; Küster, Die Schlange in der griechischen Kunst und Religion, pp. 116–117; A. Cook, Zeus, III, pp. 764–776, particularly 769, fig. 566; Mitropoulou, Deities and Heroes in the Form of Snakes, pp. 31–34; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 195–198, 200. Among the many researchers concerned with Athena’s dual character are Martin P. Nilsson, A History of Greek Religion, trans. F. J. Fielden, preface. James G. Frazer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925), p. 28; C. J. Herington, Athena Parthenos and Athena Polias: A Study in the Religion of Periclean Athens (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1955); Kerényi, Athene: Virgin and Mother; Ann Baring and Jules Cashford, The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image (London: BCA, 1991), pp. 334–338; Mark Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006); Susan Deacy, Athena (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 38–39.

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The Palazzo Colonna relief of Mithras’ mystery cult, dated to the second–fourth century CE, depicts the souls symbolized by snakes rising among flames.94 Beck also indicates that a dragon chariot is mentioned in a fragment from Euripides as an allegory for the sun.95 The connection between dragons and the element of fire is also stressed by Ogden, who outlines the literary discussion of early fire-breathing dragons, particularly the “fire against fire” motif in the myth of Typhon and Zeus. Typhon is related to volcanoes and rivers of lava, while Zeus’ lightning bolts are associated with burning desire. Moreover, medical descriptions of snake bites and snake venom liken the pain to fire and burns.96 The dragon’s association with the sun and fire is enhanced in the Medea myth. She is the granddaughter of Helios, and the depiction of her solar dragon chariot emphasizes the sun and fire, as seen in the Cleveland Medea (fig. 29) with its chariot enveloped by the sun, and the Underworld Painter’s Medea Episodes (fig. 30), in which the charioteer holds torches associated, according to the inscriptions, with passionate rage. However, when Eva Parisinou conducted archaeological and literary research into the roles of torches and lamps in ancient Greco-Roman ceremonies, she found that fire was a central votive part of nocturnal ceremonies such as the Eleusinian Mysteries and the Thesmophoria, and was most commonly used in ceremonies honoring Great Mother goddesses such as Demeter, Persephone, Artemis, and Hestia. Parisinou analyzes the ways torches, fire, and light play a part in the ceremony’s symbolic transportation between different spheres, such as the nocturnal ritual of decent (kathodos) and ascent (anodos) from the underground chambers of Demeter’s Temple in the Thesmophoria festival, in which women retrieved food that the serpents did not eat and sacrificed it. Parisinou claims that these rituals were performed solely by women due to their knowledge of the secrets of fertility, and it was believed that the ritual brought them “close to the great fertile powers of nature.”97 Cybele, a Great Mother goddess of Asia 94 Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, trans. William H. D. Rouse, rev. Martin F. Smith (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014): 2.602–603; Julian, “Oration,” in Orations 1–5, trans. Wilmer C. Wright (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 5.167b; Porphyry, On the Cave of the Nymphs, trans. Thomas Taylor, intro. Kathleen Raine (Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 1991): 34–49. Franz Cumont and Valery Marie, After Life in Roman Paganism: Lectures Delivered at Yale University on the Silliman Foundation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1922), pp. 96–103; Howard M. Jackson, “The Meaning and Function of the Leontocephaline in Roman Mithraism,” Numen, 32.1 (July 1985), pp. 17–45, particularly pp. 28–29. 95 Euripides, in Tragicorum graecorum fragmenta, ed. Augustus Nauck (Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1964): fr. 937. Beck, Planetary Gods and Planetary Orders, pp. 55–56. 96 Macrobius Ambrosius Aurelius Theodosius, Saturnalia, ed. and trans. Robert Kaster (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011): 1.19.18. Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 218–225. 97 Hesiod, Works and Days: 586; Alcaeus of Mytilene in Sappho and Alcaeus of Mytilene, Greek Lyric, ed. and trans. David Aitken Campbell (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 2015): 347a; Empedocles, The Extant Fragments, ed. intro., comm. and concordance. M. R. Wright (New

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Minor who migrated to Rome in the first century CE and is sometimes named Magna Mater (Great Mother), is described as riding a lion-driven chariot of fire and sun, as depicted on the Patera Parabiago found at Parabiago near Milan, and dated to about 360–390 CE, now in the Palazzo di Brera Museum of Archaeology, Milan.98 The connection between dragons, Medea and fire might thus be related not only to masculinity, but also to the Great Mother goddesses. As noted, fire and dragons appear together in the Medea narrative as the distance between her and the human sphere grows, as visually represented in the Cleveland Medea and Medea Episodes. Though Medea is associated with the sun through her grandfather, according to literary evidence she consulted nocturnal goddesses and the moon while brewing her potions. Great Mother goddesses such Artemis (Diana), and Selene/Luna, among others, are closely identified with the moon, as are notions of femininity more generally. In Ovid’s description of Medea’s potion brewing, the night and the moon are essential parts of the setting. Medea flies to the moon in her dragon chariot to converse with the dead and with Hecate and to pick herbs in the celestial sphere. Seneca also related that Medea consulted with various dragon constellations.99 The iconography of Medea contemplating the murder of her children presents her as a militant female, part goddess and thus affiliated with Athena/Minerva and the Erinyes/Furies, yet this representation also reveals another aspect of the Haven: Yale University Press, 1981): fr. A81, B65, B67; Hippocrates, “De morbis mulierum,” in Thesaurus linguae graecae (TLG) (Irvine: University of California, 1987–1999): 1.1; Hippocrates, “The Art,” in TLG: 10; Aristotle, History of Animals: In Ten Books, trans. Richard Cresswell (Oxford, UK: St. John’s College, 2012): 542a.32; Aristotle, Problems, eds. and trans. Robert Mayhew and David C. Mirhady (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 4.25.879a, 31–35. Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), p. 25; Eva Parisinou, The Light of the Gods: The Role of Light in Archaic and Classical Greek Cult (London: Duckworth, 2000), pp. 124–161, quotation 127. H. Parker, “Women and Medicine,” in A Companion to Women in the Ancient World, eds. James and Dillon, pp. 108–111. 98 On the Patera Parabiago, see Alda Levi, La patera d’argento di Parabiago (Rome: Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, 1935); Jaime Alvar, Romanising Oriental Gods: Myth, Salvation and Ethics in the Cults of Cybele, Isis and Mithras (Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 36, 73. For more information about the myth of Cybele, see Maarten J. Vermaseren, The Legend of Attis in Greek and Roman Art (Leiden: Brill, 1966); Joyce C. Oates, Cybele (Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow, 1979); Eugene N. Lane, ed., Cybele, Attis and Related Cults: Essays in Memory of M. J. Vermaseren (Leiden: Brill, 1996); Lynn E. Roller, In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); Philippe Borgeaud, Mother of the Gods: From Cybele to the Virgin Mary (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004); Alvar, Romanising Oriental Gods, pp. 63–74; Jean-Pierre Montesino, ed., De Cybele a Isis (Paris: Cybele, 2011). 99 On general studies of the Great Mother goddess, see Erich Neumann, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, trans. Ralph Manheim (New York: Pantheon, 1955), pp. 55–63; Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Origin of Table Manners: Introduction to a Science of Mythology (London: Cape, 1978), pp. 221–222; Nancy T. De Grummond, “Moon over Pyrgi: Catha, an Etruscan Lunar Goddess?,” American Journal of Archaeology, 112.3 (2008), pp. 419–428.

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Great Mother goddess. Pausanias documented the myth of the cult of Sosipolis on Mount Cronius near Elea, which ascribes the same symbolic and thematic aspects associated with Medea to a Mother Goddess f igure. Pausanias’ tale is about Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, who granted a baby to the Eleans in the midst of their combat with the Arcadians. When a disguised Eileithyia presents a baby to the Arcadians, they wonder whether it might be destined for sacrifice, but the baby is transformed into a gigantic dragon that fights alongside them and wins the battle for the Eleans. This myth brings together aspects of childbirth, child sacrifice, a Mother Goddess as offering the basis for a city’s foundation, and a dragon used for protection. The Medea myth is similar in many aspects: Medea sacrifices the dragon of Colchis in order to ensure Jason’s victory. However, since she is human rather than divine, she must pay a price for the harm she inflicted on the divine dragon. Medea is characterized by attributes pertaining to both fertility and militancy, which result in her decision to kill her children.100 In this way, Medea manifests behaviors similar to those of Artemis and Hera, particularly in the context of childbirth. Artemis is considered a threat during childbirth, intent on killing the mother, the child, or both, while Hera is a Great Mother goddess who inflicts death on children. The attributes of Artemis and Hestia during childbirth are flaming torches, which are considered to inflict the pain of childbirth, and are also connected to dragons and to Medea – as a form of infant protection. Man’s enemy, the dragon, thus becomes an ally of the female heroine and protects children. Johnston establishes that Medea functioned in Corinth as a fertility demon, assuming an apotropaic role when allied with dragons. Like Hera, her image becomes that of a child protector.101 It is therefore suggested here that the images of Medea in Corinth riding her dragon-driven chariot illuminate Medea’s visual characteristics, which are aligned with her literary descriptions and the symbolism of her serpentine hair. Her androgynous aspects, and her association with fire and infants, come together to stress the binary aspects of her personality: a female figure associated with masculine symbols such as fire and a sword, as well as with the feminine aspects of sorcery and serpentine hair. These symbols stress her role as a prototype of women on the margins, underscoring both social codes concerning gendered behavior and the fear of their subversion. These different aspects are all amplified in representations of Medea on sarcophagi, which are examined in the following section. 100 Pausanias, Description of Greece: 6.20.2–6. Ogden, Drakōn, p. 204. 101 S. Johnston, “Corinthian Medea and the Cult of Hera Akraia,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 55–67; Parisinou, The Light of the Gods, pp. 45–48. On Hera and infanticide, see S. Johnston, “Corinthian Medea and the Cult of Hera Akraia,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 52–55; Jennifer Larson, Understanding Greek Religion: A Cognitive Approach (London: Routledge, 2016), pp. 31–40.

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Sin and Repentance: Representations of Medea on Sarcophagi The most striking artistic depiction of these aspects of Medea is the narrative sequence found on second-century Roman sarcophagi and funerary urns, of which there are at least twenty-six known artifacts. Superb examples include those in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin (fig. 38), the Museum of Antiquities, Basel, the Roman National Museum (found in the cryptoporticus on the Palatine), and the Terme Museum, Rome. The question of Medea’s popularity on art objects dedicated to the dead has perplexed many scholars, and has been carefully researched by Genevieve Gesert, who explains the dissonance between representations of Medea as a dangerous woman and her appearance on funeral objects intended for personal consolation.102 The following part of the discussion concerns the sacrifice of children in GrecoRoman antiquity, which is crucial for understanding the representations of the children’s corpses in Medea’s dragon-chariot, and its placement on sarcophagi. Early evidence from several cities in the Peloponnese suggests that the sacrifice of humans, particularly of children, was customary during earlier eras. Furthermore, Karl Schefold claims that the Roman funerary iconography symbolizes eschatological hope for an afterlife. For example, the Niobid sarcophagi represent the freeing of Niobe’s children from earthly troubles and their promised salvation. Similarly, I suggest that in the iconography of these sarcophagi, Medea actually offers salvation to her children, and hence functions as a divine mediator and protector of children.103 102 “Medea,” in LIMC, IV/2, figs. 46, 50–64. Several sarcophagi focus on the Colchis episode, but the majority depict the Corinthian episode. Carl Robert, Die antiken Sarkophag-Reliefs (Berlin: Grote, 1890), II; Margot Schmid, Der basler Medeasarkophag: Ein Meisterwerk spätantoninischer Kunst (Tübingen: Wasmuth, 1980); Vassiliki Gaggadis-Robin, Jason et Médée: Sur les sarcophages d’époque impériale (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1994), pp. 9–20; Genevieve Gessert, “Myth as Consolatio: Medea on Roman Sarcophagi,” Greece and Rome, 51.2 (2004), pp. 217–249; Zahra Newby, Greek Myths in Roman Art and Culture: Imagery, Values and Identity in Italy, 50 BC–AD 250 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 318–329. 103 Karl Schefold, “La force créatrice du symbolisme funéraire des Romains,” Revue archéologique, 2 (1961), pp. 177–209; Klaus Fittschen, “Der Tod der Kreusa und der Niobiden: Überlegungen zur Deutung griechischer Mythen auf römischen Sarkophagen,” Studi italiani di filologia classica, 3.10 (1992), pp. 1046–1059; Janet Huskinson, Roman Children’s Sarcophagi: Their Decoration and Its Social Significance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996); Paul Zanker, “‘Phädras Trauer und Hippolytos’ Bildung: Zu einem Sarkophag im Thermenmuseum,” in Im Spiegel des Mythos: Bilderwelt und Lebenswelt, eds. Francesco De Angelis, Tonio Hölscher and Susanne Muth (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1999), pp. 131–142, particularly pp. 133–134. Newby noted that “it is also possible that some may have read redemption here (in the Medea sarcophagi)”; see Zahra Newby, From Home to Tomb: Myths in the Funerary Realm (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016), p. 327. For further discussion concerning the sacrifice of children in the ancient Greco-Roman world, see Shelby Brown, Late Carthaginian Child Sacrifice and Sacrificial Monuments in Their Mediterranean Context (Sheff ield: Sheff ield Academic Press, 1991); Sarah P. Morris, “The Sacrif ice of Astyanax: Near Eastern Contributions to the Siege of Troy,” in The Ages of Homer, eds. Jane B. Carter and Sarah P. Morris

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Figure 38 – Medea Sarcophagus, second century CE, white marble, Pergamon Museum, Berlin © Typhon2222, public domain, Wikimedia.

The Corinthian ritual of dressing fourteen youths in black and addressing them for a year as if they were dead was attributed to the cult of Medea’s children, and is important to mention in the context of the current discussion. Johnston claims that this ritual was the residue of a ceremonial sacrifice of children to either Medea or Hera, which was meant to purify a miasma – an act of ill-doing that needed to be atoned for, and usually affecting an entire community. The myth of Medea in Corinth and the related ritual might offer a key for interpreting the puzzling artistic representations that show Medea’s children sacrificed on an altar (figs. 29, 30, 36, 37), as well as for the iconography of the sarcophagi on which she is usually depicted as caring for her children in her dragon-driven chariot (fig. 38).104 The interpretation I offer here considers the sequential depiction of the Medea myth on these sarcophagi, beginning with her life in Colchis, continuing with the Corinthian episode, and culminating in her ascent in her dragon-driven chariot. In Colchis she is represented as a holy woman and mistress of the dragon, which functions as the guardian of a holy tree bearing the fruit of immortality. It has already been established that Medea’s transgression toward her family, and especially toward her father and the holy dragon, was central to this myth, but it is also of key relevance to the myth concerning the events in Corinth. This aspect of the myth is stressed in the Underworld Painter’s Apulian volute crater from Canossa (fig. 30), on (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), pp. 221–245; John S. Rundin, “Pozo Moro, Child Sacrifice, and the Greek Legendary Tradition,” Journal of Biblical Literature, 123.3 (2004), pp. 425–447; Richard Holway, Becoming Achilles: Child-Sacrifice, War, and Misrule in the Iliad and Beyond (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2012); Dennis D. Hughes, Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece (London: Routledge, 2013). 104 S. Johnston, “Corinthian Medea and the Cult of Hera Akraia,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 44–70: On the concept of miasma, see Robert C. T. Parker, Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983).

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which her father’s ghost lords over the scene to remind her of the initial transgression she committed toward him and the dragon. This transgression transforms her from a holy woman into a witch – thus enacting the dichotomy between the holy woman and the defiled woman, which concerns profound knowledge of different aspects of life.105 Transgressions occur several times in the course of the Medea myth. Medea goes against her father’s will by marrying Jason, who is his enemy, and in this sense rejects the family values associated with marriage. Medea then helps Jason to steal all that is valuable to her father – his daughter, the Golden Fleece, and his son Apsyrtus, whom she and Jason later brutally murder. No less horrible is the act of turning King Pelias’ daughters into his murderers. Jason and Medea’s children are the fruits of these transgressions, which must be considered a miasma. It was even suggested by Apollonios that there was nothing the couple could have done to atone for their deeds. Since the children of Jason and Medea are the result of an immoral union, I suggest that their murder by their own mother was the ultimate sacrifice offered by Medea in her efforts to be redeemed, gain apotheosis, regain her virginity, and be reunited with dragons. The current investigation suggests that the image of the dead children on the sarcophagi is a visualization of a sacrificial concept, which symbolically represents the attempts of the deceased to gain redemption for their transgressions and to attain salvation.106 Seneca stressed the aspect of repentance in the Medea myth by having the Furies together with Apsyrtus’s ghost appear to Medea as great serpents. Seneca describes the moment in which Medea contemplates her wrongdoing – for which the Furies demand just revenge – when she decides to sacrifice her children: Look! What are they doing, this violent crowd of Furies? Whom are they seeking, at whom are they aiming those flaming blows, at whom does the hellish army aim its bloody torches? The great snake hisses and twists as the whip comes down. Whom is the head of the Furies seeking, with her menacing brand, Megaera? Whose shade comes half-invisible, his limbs scattered apart? It is my brother, he wants revenge. We will pay it: we will all pay. Fix deep your torch in my eyes, ravage me, burn me up, see, my whole breast is open for 105 Sourvinou-Inwood, “Medea at a Shifting Distance,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 272–273. 106 Apollonios, Argonautica: 4.557–561. Bremmer, “Why Did Medea Kill Her Brother Apsyrtus?,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 84–85; Nussbaum, “Serpents in the Soul,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, p. 232.

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the Furies. Leave me, my brother, and you avenging goddesses, and order your ghosts to go back safe to the depths of Hell. Leave me to myself and use this hand, my brother, which has drawn the sword: we appease your spirit now, with this sacrificial victim. – What was that sudden noise? They are taking up weapons against me, they want to kill me. I will climb up to the topmost roof of our house though the killing is unfinished. All of you, come with me. And I myself will carry away with me your body. Now do it, heart: you must not waste your courage in secret: prove to the people the things you can do.107

Medea, at this moment in the play, murders her children not in order to take revenge on Jason, but rather as a purifying sacrifice to eliminate a defiling miasma. Moreover, she offers her sacrifice to the Furies and to a great dragon god that represents the dead (single or plural) in the hope of regaining her purity and reuniting with them. Medea herself appears several times on the sarcophagi, alluding to the different aspects of her character and different stages of her development. The dragon-chariot motif was familiar to Roman viewers, who also associated it with Triptolemos and Ceres (Demeter). The appearance of Ceres on a dragon chariot on sarcophagi representing the rape of Persephone (fig. 14) supports this association. Athena is also shown riding the dragon chariot, suggesting that the chariot symbolizes the two ends of a continuum extending from Ceres, the goddess of fertility, to Athena the virgin mother,108 and on to Medea, a healer, witch, and mother who regains her virginity. These figures all reflect the binary nature of the dragon as a sacred protector and a vicious killer. These examples show that the iconology of the dragon chariot is concerned with the cosmic cycle of fertility and decay, and is related to the broader theme of the dragon as a symbol of time. As already noted, the image of the dragon fuses both chthonic and heavenly aspects, and is thus a figurative reflection of the dichotomy between beliefs locating the world of the dead underground and those locating it in the celestial realm. The chariot of the dragons is the figurative symbol of the Roman concept of death and salvation; hence Ceres, the goddess of fertility, rides on this chariot when she pursues Pluto (the Roman Hades; fig. 14), the god of the dead, who kidnaped Kore to the underworld – which she will leave and return to in a continuous cycle. Medea’s dragon chariot, it is suggested here, can be read as a symbol of apotheosis, explaining its frequent presence on sarcophagi. 107 Seneca, Medea: 958–977. 108 Kerényi, Athene.

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The image of the dead children carried away by a figure that is about to experience apotheosis redresses Hera’s unfulfilled promise to them in the Corinthian variation of the myth, suggesting their eternal afterlife and salvation.109 Two Medea sarcophagi and two Medea cinerary urns have been recognized by Gesert as representing the figure of Tellus/Terra Mater, the Roman version of Gaia, which appears underneath Medea’s chariot, as in the Medea Sarcophagi in the Museum of Antiquities, Basel and the Terme Museum, Rome. Tellus’ gestures allude to the cult of Sabazion and to an eschatological aspect of salvation. Tellus is repeatedly presented under the horse chariot on sarcophagi depicting the myth of Selene and Endymion, and symbolizes ascension from the earth to a higher sphere. In the Selene and Endymion sarcophagus, dated to 190–210 BCE and now in the Metropolitan Museum, Tellus holds a snake in her left hand, and in the version from the Capitoline Museum, Rome, there is an upper register that depicts four Ketos dragons. Tellus is also presented beneath Ceres’s dragon chariot in a relief on the base of a tripod dated to the f irst century CE, now in the Istanbul Museum.110 In the Roman era, the motif of a woman feeding a dragon was also related to the Great Mother Goddess Bona Dea – the “Good Goddess” – who was considered the protector of Rome, as seen in a Bona Dea statue dated to the first century CE in the National Archaeology Museum, Naples, and in a bronze statue dated to the first–third century CE, now in Civic Museum of History and Art, Trieste. Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, a fifth-century Christian classicist, explained Bona Dea’s role and function as an earth goddess related to fertility and growth, while also relating her to Medea: Some think she (Magna Mater/ Maia/bona Dea) is Medea, because all kinds of herbs are found in her temple, from which the priestesses mostly make medicines which they distribute; and because no man may enter her temple on account of the wrong she suffered at the hands of her thankless husband Jason.111

109 Susan Wood, “Mortals, Empresses, and Earth Goddesses: Demeter and Persephone in Public and Private Apotheosis,” in I, Claudia II: Women in Roman Art and Society, eds. Diana E. E. Kleiner and Susan B. Matheson (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000), pp. 77–100. 110 Kevin Herbert, “A Roman Cinerary Urn at Bowdoin College,” American Journal of Archaeology, 64.1 (January 1960), pp. 76–78; Michael Koortbojian, Myth, Meaning, and Memory on Roman Sarcophagi (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 65–70; Gessert, “Myth as Consolatio,” p. 232. Francis Vian and M. B. Moore investigate a fragmented frieze from Aphrodisias featuring a chariot with two dragons, one of which might have carried Athena and the other Dionysus or Cybele; see Francis Vian and M. B. Moore, “Gigantes,” in LIMC, IV/1, p. 262; Ogden, Drakōn, p. 85. Hygieia is also evident in the Meidias Painter’s hydria, which depicts Hercules in the garden of the Hesperides, among other figures. 111 Macrobius, Saturnalia: 1.12.26.

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Macrobius’ henotheistic outline combined several feminine deities to create a coherent, unified feminine divinity, while emphasizing the view of the strength acquired by female goddess cults, which forbid men from entering the temple, as problematic. The association of Bona Dea with Hecate and Medea demonstrates the mysterious, witchlike nature of these goddesses, whose matriarchal cults are linked with aspects of danger that Macrobius claimed lurked within knowledgeable women. The Bona Dea myth describes a union between her and her father as a serpent, a typical example of the “bride of death” theme pertaining to a female who abstains from intercourse with a male and is instead united with a dragon.112 Significantly, Macrobius describes that in that Magna Mater temple, which men are forbidden from entering: “there are serpents living in her temple which, indifferent to their surroundings, neither cause nor feel fear.”113 On the Medea sarcophagi, Medea is first presented as feeding the dragon. In Roman culture, the motif of a female feeding the dragon was also inherent to Vesta, and is attested to in C. Firminus Pupius’s sculpture of Vesta feeding the serpent, dated to 140–150 CE, and now in the Antikensammlung, Berlin. Pailler outlines the emanation of the Vestal Virgins’ power and sacredness from Juno Sospita. She presents documentation concerning Tertullian, an early Christian polemic of the second–third centuries CE, who slandered the Vestal Temple, describing the Vestal Virgins as follows: “Romae quidem, quae ignis illius inextinguibilis imaginem tractant, auspicia poenae suae cum ipso dracone curantes, de virginitate censentur” (in Rome, for instance, they who have to do with the type of that “inextinguishable fire,” keeping watch over the omens of their own [future] penalty, in company with the [old] dragon himself, are appointed on the ground of virginity).114 The Vestal Virgins as keepers of the eternal fire were, according to Tertullian, united with the serpent of Satan, but he does not forget to mention that the dragon is also a healer.115 112 Macrobius, Saturnalia: 1.12.20–29. “Bona Dea,” in LIMC, III/1, pp. 120–126, III/2, pp. 96–97; Hendrik H. J. Brouwer, Bona Dea: The Sources and a Description of the Cult (Leiden: Brill, 1989), pp. 240–241; Henk S. Versnel, “The Festival for Bona Dea and the Thesmophoria,” Greece and Rome, 39.1 (April 1992), pp. 31–55; Attilio Mastrocinque, Bona Dea and the Cults of Roman Women (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2014). 113 Macrobius, Saturnalia: 1.12.25. 114 Tertullian, “To My Wife,” in Christian Classics Electronic Library (Calvin University, Grand Rapids, MI): https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.iv.ii.html: 1.6.3. 115 “Vesta,” in LIMC, V/2, fig. 30; W. Riedinger, “Vesta,” in Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft: Neue Bearbeitung unter Mitwirkung zahlreicher Fachgenossen, eds. George Wissowa, Wilhelm Kroll, Konrat Ziegler and K. Mittelhaus (Stuttgart: Metzler; Druckenmüller, 1894–1963), ser. 2, VIII/A/16, p. 1755; Adolf Greifenhagen, Das Vesta-relief aus Wilton House (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1967); Wilhelm Pohlkamp, “Tradition und Topographie: Papst Silvester I. (314–335) und der Drache vom Forum romanum / Tradition et topographie: Le pape Sylvestre I et le dragon du Forum romain,” Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte, 78.1–2 (1983), pp. 1–100, particularly pp. 20–26; Jean-Marie Pailler, “La vierge et le serpent de la trivalence à l’ambiguїté,” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome antiquité, 109 (1997), pp. 513–575, particularly p. 520; Ogden, Drakōn, p. 321.

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I maintain that Medea’s character was meant to be unsettling, and was supposed to enhance the bias against the treacherous nature of mortal women entrusted with healing crafts and knowledge of herbs – women, who, in Pauline Ripat’s words, “in order to be able to ‘help,’ … must also have the power to ‘harm.’” Medea can thus be viewed as a prototype representing the bias against powerful and controversial women, which served as a politically expedient means of eliminating threatening women and controlling the female members of society. Cicero’s Palatine Medea, invented in order to malign Clodia Metelli, emblematizes how the bias associated with Medea was understood and attached to real women in order to criticize behaviors viewed as immoral and scandalous, while stressing their dangerous implications.116 Medea’s ability to change her fate and the fate of others, and to undermine the established order of nature, is both alarming and admirable, and its representations in the context of Greek and Roman culture reflect actual historical challenges faced by Roman patriarchy. It seems almost inevitable that the part of the myth transpiring in Athens should involve political intrigue. I term this aspect of the Medea myth the “Medea bias,” thus pointing to the manner in which it has been projected onto many real and imaginary women who challenged the traditional social order, well beyond the specific patriarchies in question or any direct association with Medea or her Myth. The Medea Sarcophagus from the Pergamon Museum (fig. 38) depicts Medea on her chariot, her hair loose and her clothes fluttering in the wind as she is carried through the sky by her winged dragons, raising a sword in one hand. One dead child lies upon her shoulder, and the leg of another peeks out from her chariot. In this image, Medea is depicted as crossing the boundary between the human and divine worlds as she ascends to the realm of the gods, while also challenging accepted gender boundaries. Once again, although she is an emblem of evil, having murdered Creusea and her own children. Despite this horror, underscored by its contrast with the children’s representation as playing Cupids, she is rewarded by being offered an escape and granted apotheosis. In this sense, she represents the possibility of redemption, suggesting the reversibility of even the most horrible acts. The children attain salvation in the celestial sphere, while her own soul is also redeemed. Thus, this scene symbolizes the reversal of fate brought about by redemption and salvation in the afterlife. In this manner, the Medea sarcophagi 116 Skinner, “Clodia Metelli,” pp. 275, 286; Matthew W. Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World (London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 35–36, 79, 175; Ogden, Night’s Black Agents, pp. 27–38; Ogden, Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts, pp. 78–93; Elizabeth A. Pollard, “Magic Accusations against Women in Tacitus’s The Histories,” in Daughters of Hecate, Stratton, pp. 183–218; Spaeth, “From Goddess to Hag,” in Daughters of Hecate, Stratton, pp. 41–70; Ripat, “Roman Women, Wise Women, and Witches.”

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symbolize the option of redemption for the deceased and their living relatives, which is stressed by the assimilation of her image to those of numerous Roman goddesses.

The Analogy between Women and Dragons Nussbaum’s discussion of Seneca’s Medea emphasizes the snake’s role as her avatar: “[By] transforming Medea into a snake, he [Seneca] links the serpent with woman’s hair and with her writhing movement.” Nussbaum presents Medea as the embodiment of the Stoic concept of desire, and particularly of love (Eros). Her “Serpents in the Soul: A Reading of Seneca’s Medea” interprets the snakes as an allegory of Medea’s unbridled desire. She analyzes a long tradition pertaining to the contradictory philosophies of the Stoic and Neoplatonic schools, which each presented Medea’s actions as demonstrating their philosophic claim. The philosopher Epictetus, who lived at the end of the first century CE, was probably quoting the third-century BCE Stoic scholar Chrysippus when he described Medea’s metamorphosis into a serpent as passionate rage took control of her rational mind: “Why, then, are you angry with her, because the poor woman has gone astray in the greatest matters, and has been transformed from a human being into a viper?” This debate maintained that the dragon chariot was a symbol for uncontrolled rage or irrational thinking. Despite the fact that the oracular act of the Delphic Pythia and other oracles were central to the culture of that time, they were nonetheless described as irrational. The ecstasy that took control of the Pythia’s body and her mumbling were far-removed from socially acceptable behavior. Thus, the description is of a passionate and emotional serpent that communicates with an irrational being in human form, usually a woman. In this light, Nussbaum argues that the dragon chariot is the antithesis of Plato’s horse-drawn chariot in the Paeidea; the male charioteer makes rational choices, whereas the female one is uncontrolled and impassioned, qualities pertaining to the themes of both fertility and destruction symbolized by the dragons.117 The allegorical connection between passion (unrestrained amor) and serpents was also related to fire. Ancient Greek and Latin expressions make use of such metaphors of love as fire, used even today: “Thrust down the flames that burn your virgin heart” is, for example, the phrase used by Ovid to describe Medea “burning 117 Plato, Plato’s Phaedrus, trans. intro. and comm. Reginald Hackforth (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989): 34.16, c253–59, particularly c253; Epictetus, Discourses, trans. William Abbot Oldfather (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014): 1.28.7. A summary of the philosophical debate on Medea is provided in John M. Dillon, “Medea among the Philosophers,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 211–218. Nussbaum, “Serpents in the Soul,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 222, 236. Ustinova outlines the connection between Oracles and the irrational; see Ustinova, Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind, pp. 55–68.

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with desire” when she first encounters Jason. Bernard M. W. Knok points to the metaphorical link between the serpent and the flame, which was broadly employed in Roman culture, enhancing Nussbaum’s conclusion that the snake is a symbol for Medea’s uncontrolled emotions. Eros and burning desire are mentioned in almost every variation of the Medea Colchis myth as the origin of Medea’s transgression. Fire is an allegory for Medea’s consuming rage and revenge, explaining why the Underworld Painter of the Apulian crater named the charioteer of Medea’s dragon chariot Oîstros, depicting him with a torch in each hand (fig. 30). He also depicts Medea’s child holding a torch as Medea stabs him. The association between dragons and fire is also present in other descriptions of Medea as a reflection of her uncontrolled emotions, as can be seen in the above quotation from Seneca.118 Nussbaum even compares Eros to a serpent, arguing that both are ancient powers that silently “crawl” into the soul and bite without warning. The dragon’s dual nature is analogous to that of Eros, who, like Medea, is both positive and negative. This analogy may also be related back to the discussion of the image of Eros riding on the back of Ketos (fig. 22), which was discussed in the previous chapter. As I suggest in the current analysis, the cultural distress regarding powerful women was given expression through the assimilation between woman and dragon, which gave rise to a rich and composite visual metaphor. Both Medea and the dragon are holy at their core, yet can become deadly. This analogy also equips Medea with fire, which is at once vital and deadly. It is also worth noting the development of Medea’s erotic interactions with dragons in Roman literature. Seneca’s allusion to this theme is transformed into flagrant erotic episodes in Valerius Flaccus’s Argonautica, in which Medea is described as lying on the Colchis dragon as she asks for forgiveness and gratitude for not killing him: She overwhelmed his struggling eyes with an incantation against them, and with tongue and hand she tried all her Stygian power, until sleep was in control of his blazing anger. Now his lofty crests sank down. His head, under compulsion, and his huge neck nodded down from the fleece, like the Po in backward flow or 118 Pindar, Pythian: 4.219; Ovid, Metamorphoses: 7.9–12, 76–77, quotation, 7.12; Seneca, Medea: 591–592, 671–672, 818–819, 958–977. Bernard M. W. Knox, “The Serpent and the Flame: The Imagery of the Second Book of the Aeneid,” American Journal of Philology, 71.4 (1950), pp. 379–400, particularly n. 2; Carole E. Newlands, “The Metamorphosis of Ovid’s Medea,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 181–183; Nussbaum, “Serpents in the Soul,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston, pp. 230–235; Parisinou, The Light of the Gods, pp. 114–118, 118–120, which follows this discussion of the connection between fire and divine inspiration. Verity Platt surveys the visual depiction of this metaphor; see Verity Platt, “Burning Butterflies: Seals, Symbols and the Soul in Antiquity,” in Pagans and Christians: From Antiquity to the Middle Ages; Papers in Honour of Martin Henig, Presented on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, ed. Lauren Gilmour (British Archaeological Reports 1610. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2007), pp. 89–99.

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the Nile dispersed into seven rivers or the Alpheos as it arrives in the Hesperian world. Medea herself, when she saw the head of her dear dragon on the ground, threw herself upon him and put her arms around him, and wept for herself and for her nursling, to whom she was being so cruel.119

This erotic connection between a woman and a dragon underscores their aspiration for unity. The recurring literary image of Medea loosening her hair, and the visual comparison of her hair to serpents, serve to symbolize the uncontrolled, promiscuous, and highly erotic aspects of her personality. However, Medea is mostly shown with her hair tied, as in the fresco from Pompeii (fig. 37). On other occasions, such as on the Medea Sarcophagus dated to the second century CE, in the Museum of Antiquities, Basel, her transformation is symbolized by her hair: on one side of the sarcophagus, her hair is covered like that of a pious matron, whereas her long locks are loose and serpentine when riding the dragon chariot. In other cases, her chariot fills the gap between the literary description of Medea’s hair and its visualization. In the Medea Sarcophagus in the Pergamon Museum (fig. 38), it is Creusea’s image that mimics serpents, as rising upward as if in flames, to express her uncontrolled emotions during her death pangs. Her figure is depicted on Medea Sarcophagi in a way almost identical to the Maenads, and can be compared to images such as the dancing Maenad in the Circular Altar, dated to the first century CE, and now in the Archaeological Museum of Seville. Creusea’s pain is described by Seneca as serpentine flames consuming her flesh, and her visual depiction creates an analogy between her uncontrolled emotions, serpents and flams. Although Klaus Fittschen contends that Creusea is the focus of this composition, Medea’s image pervades every aspect of this composition; I therefore suggest that these images of Creusea represent Medea’s raging soul in these images – she is literally burning in Medea’s rage. The representation of Medea on the sarcophagi delivered a different message from the literary one: although Medea breaks the rules of society, she reunites with the dragon, and is at least in control of it, for she regains her virginity and therefore does not cross the line to attain a union with it.120 Medea’s image represents the cycle of time and related processes of blooming and decay, which have both an emotional and a moral resonance. Her image embodies dualistic themes: death and destruction – of a person, house and kingdom, as well as aspects of genesis and rejuvenation, as part of the theme of the inexorable cycle. 119 Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica: 8.85–94; Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, p. 129 (89). Ogden, Drakōn, p. 202. This section again forges an association between Medea and the Hesperides, and repeatedly connects dragons with rivers, springs, and the sea. 120 Fittschen, “Der Tod der Kreusa und der Niobiden.”

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This duality recalls several aspects of Great Goddesses: Hera perpetrates infanticide in the Corinthian myth and sends Python after a pregnant Leto to prevent her childbirth, although she is a divinity associated with fertility; Artemis lurks in the shadows during babies’ births, inflicting the pains of childbirth with torches, and must be appeased so that she will not kill both baby and mother, yet is the protector of all wildlife. A vase that presents Medea in the Eleusinian context, for instance, stresses her role as an infanticide demon, as well as a protector of children (fig. 36). The children’s identity on this vase has a double meaning, which creates a parallel between the myth of Medea and that of Hercules. In both cases, these acts of murder generate great deeds; Hercules’s famous labors would have not taken place if this murder, predestined by the gods, had not occurred. The legend of Hercules offers various analogies to the theme of time and the process of growth, as made evident by his representations on sarcophagi.121 Similarly, the symbolic meaning of representations of Medea in the Darius Painter’s Medea and the “Eleusis. To Heron” volute crater (fig. 36) informs the understanding of her image on sarcophagi, since it concerns her children’s afterlife in the Elysian Fields, and the way in which her sacrifice frees her from the miasma and restores order. Medea becomes a healing demon; just as protectors of fertility are shown threatening children, so Medea, who committed infanticide, is the protector of children in the afterlife.122 Once again, we can observe the apotropaic notion at work – the demon’s image is meant to turn away similar demons. Representations of Medea on sarcophagi depict her as conceptually bridging the distance between this world and the next. Her image mimics the apotropaic function of serpent images, and was intended to protect the fruit of women’s wombs. In Medea sarcophagi, she is depicted as carrying her children’s corpses in her dragon chariot, probably as a promise of their resurrection, hinting at her children’s attainment of salvation (fig. 38). Medea’s association with salvation is rooted in the symbolism of her image on the Eleusinian vase (fig. 26) and on the Meidias Painter’s hydria representing the promise of salvation and the afterlife (for heroes alone at that point). This meaning is consistent in all depictions of Medea in Corinth, including Medea sarcophagi. The centrality of this latter aspect 121 Peter F. B. Jongste, The Twelve Labours of Hercules on Roman Sarcophagi (Roma: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1992). 122 Hyginus, Fabulae: 140; M. Schmidt, “Medea und Herakles”; Parisinou, The Light of the Gods, pp. 45–47. Hera also caused Semele, Dionysus’s mother, to be killed (Ovid, Metamorphoses: 3.273–86; Hyginus, Fabulae: 167) and tried to kill baby Hercules by means of two dragons (Pindar, “Nemean Ode”: 1.33–59; Theocritus, Idyll, in Moschus; Bion, Hopkinson: 24.10–33; Plautus, “Amphitryon,” in Amphitryon; The Comedy of Asses; The Pot of Gold; The Two Bacchises; The Captives, vol. I of Plautus, ed. and trans. Wolfgang David Cirilio de Melo (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 1091–1124. Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, pp. 45–49 (19–22).

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of her representation in second-century Rome reflects the growing popularity of the notion of the soul’s salvation, as evidenced by the flourishing of mystery cults during this particular period.123 Babies in the ancient world often died during their birth or in infancy, and few households never experienced the loss of a child. The images of Medea carrying her dead children on her shoulders are thus, as I suggest, an allusion to her future reunion with them or to their apotheosis. Gesert suggests that the Medea sarcophagi were intended to console visitors to the grave by relating the child’s death to the Roman ethos of mothers who sacrifice their children as soldiers in the army. In my view, Medea’s function in this context is to comfort the loved ones, giving them hope of reuniting with their children in the afterlife and offering redemption and salvation to the dead. The harnessing of dragons to function as agathos daimons, and as the genius paterfamilias, relates to them as being messengers of death and protectors, and as granting the deceased an afterlife. This function underscores their sacred status, as given expression by the most famous dragon cult, the Roman cult of Glycon mentioned in Chapter One.124 Chronologically, the Medea myth sequence leads to her life in Athens, where she is the wife of Aegeus and the evil stepmother of Theseus. As noted above, she tries to trick Aegeus into poisoning his son, but he recognizes him at the very last moment and saves Theseus from the poison concocted by Medea, who once again appears here as a fertility demon orchestrating the death of the king’s son. Discussing artistic representations of this part of the mythical narrative is problematic, since visual evidence is available only from the second quarter of the fifth century BCE to the fourth quarter of that same century. Although chronologically problematic, these images are important because they represent a unique series of instances in which Medea is depicted as entirely Greek in terms of her clothing. The most common and popular iconography presents Theseus pursuing Medea with his sword drawn, as on the Hermonax Painter’s Pelike (fig. 39). Sourvinou-Inwood, who studied this iconographic series and its symbolic and semantic meaning, highlights the violent attitude and deadly intentions of Theseus toward the figure she identifies as Medea, and rejects any possible erotic connotation. Although only the Makron Painter’s cup identifies Theseus by name, and none of the numerous Attic vases that portray this scene identify Medea, Sourvinou-Inwood proves beyond doubt that this is indeed Medea. She analyzes the role of Theseus as the paradigmatic Attic ephebes, which necessarily casts Medea as “the bad woman,” whose behavior counters all expectations from a woman in fifth-century BCE Athens. Medea’s image in this case expresses the fears of a patriarchal society from women in unusual positions of 123 Alvar, Romanising Oriental Gods. 124 Gessert, “Myth as Consolatio,” pp. 242–249.

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Figure 39 – Phiale Painter, A Young Man Chasing a Woman (Theseus Chasing Medea), 440–430 BCE, Attic red figured Terracotta Nolan neck-amphora, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (41.162.142) © Met, public domain – Rogers Fund, 1941.

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power as is the wife of a ruler. Although I believe that this image was likely created in reaction to the controversy that arose from the presence of Aspasia of Miletus in Athens, yet this hypothesis cannot be proven.125 Sourvinou-Inwood offers several remarkable analyses of these images, to which I wish to add two points. The first concerns the behavior of Theseus, who draws his sword and is ready to attack, in a manner recalling the dragon-slayer motif as seen, for example, in the image of Cadmos confronting the dragon (fig. 7), or of Perseus fighting Ketos (fig. 22). Naturally, the motif of a hero charging forward with his sword is present in many battle scenes, but the positioning of Medea as the enemy, particularly when she is depicted as an Athenian everywoman – as the opposite of the grotesque dragon – sheds further light on her character, and the general demonization of women as suggested by this iconography. Despite being presented as a typical Athenian woman, she is treated as a dragon. The second and related point concerns the similarities between this iconography and that of Perseus pursuing Medusa, such as the image by the Berlin Painter in the Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich. The iconographical scheme of Medusa as alive and pursued by Perseus – the Greek ephebes – parallels that of Medea being pursued by Theseus. The female figures in both compositions symbolize the challenge and threat that powerful women posed to the patriarchal order as they chase a male hero and are chased by it in turn. Particularly when we remember that in fifth-century BCE Athens, Medusa was atypically depicted as human, with no hint of grotesque qualities (fig. 27). The images of these two female figures closely correspond to the social order they challenged by representing Medusa as a human and by representing Medea as a Greek wife. Medea, however, is more threatening than Medusa, because the viewers’ reaction to the scene would have included their knowledge of the end of Medusa, who is destined to die at the hands of Perseus, whereas Medea lives on. To conclude, Medea is identified by many scholars as the “other” located on the margins of the social structure. Yet whereas most scholars focus on only one part of the myth and on the otherness of her clothing, this analysis regards the entirety of her myth cycle as representing the dangers of otherness: Medea is the stereotypical 125 Sourvinou-Inwood, Theseus as Son and Stepson; Sourvinou-Inwood, “Myths in Images,” in Approaches to Greek Myth, ed. Edmunds; Sourvinou-Inwood, “Medea at a Shifting Distance,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston; Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, Tragedy and Athenian Religion (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003). On Aspasia of Miletus, see Madeleine M. Henry, Prisoner of History: Aspasia of Miletus and Her Biographical Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Cheryl Glenn, “Sex, Lies, and Manuscript: Refiguring Aspasia in the History of Rhetoric,” College Composition and Communication, 45.2 (1994), pp. 180–199; Susan Jarrat and Rory Ong, “Aspasia: Rhetoric, Gender, and Colonial Ideology,” in Reclaiming Rhetorica: Women in the Rhetorical Tradition, ed. Andrea A. Lunsford (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995), pp. 9–24.

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woman, who can help but also destroy; she is an emblem of the dragon, while existing in a mimetic relationship to it. Both Medea and the dragon represent the opposite of the male protagonist. Medea’s representations emphasize several aspects of the motif of the woman and the dragon: she is in possession of the powerful knowledge held by holy women because she was formerly a mistress of the dragon, with whom she shares many characteristics as well as a sacred union. Visual and literary representations of Medea by male artists and writers demonstrate how patriarchal societies projected their fears of strong women onto myths and their visual manifestations. Medea’s image embodies the struggle between goodness and malevolence, between the holy woman and the witch, between the killer who causes miasma and the one responsible for redemption. She is also the epitome of androgyny – appearing as a militant woman who challenges social gender roles, thus further underscoring the warning concerning the danger of strong women. In Rome, Medea is portrayed as making the ultimate sacrifice, and is harnessed to the iconography of postmortem salvation.126 As noted, in addition to her depiction as a demon, whose apotropaic functions transforms her image into a protector of children, the narrative of Medea and Jason portrays them both as emblems of healing gods, associated with Asclepius and Hygieia. The motif of the serpent and the tree in this myth has been shown to be related to the theme of healing and salvation, and to the liminal location between life and death, whereas the Golden Fleece and golden apples have been identified as related to the gateway to the Elysian Fields. The relationship between the iconography of the Hesperides and that of Medea has also been demonstrated, further underscoring the connection between the cave and the tree to the motif of the holy woman and the dragon. The symbolic aspects of Medea’s image had an enduring impact on Mediterranean stereotypes of women, heightening the association already forged by the figure of Medusa between serpentine hair and the evil and demonic aspects of women. The stereotypical union of witches with serpents would also persist. At the same time, the image of the serpent came to be associated with crafts of healing and protection, as demonstrated by the symbol of medicine that has persisted to this day. From this point onward, however, the duality inherent to Medea’s character was split, while the association between women and dragons grew increasingly powerful. Medea’s myth continued to be known during medieval times, and was frequently debated and illustrated, as in Raoul Lefèvre’s Histoire de Jason, and in the 1505 book Vie des femmes célèbres, now in the Dobree Museum in Nantes, France. Her role as a witch was united with her power to heal and resurrect, and she becomes 126 Following Graf’s methodology; see Graf, “Medea, the Enchantress from Afar,” in Medea: Essays, eds. Clauss and S. Johnston.

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a symbol of alchemy. Indeed, her name is considered by some as the etymological source for the word “medicine” – medici. The Medea bias remains evident in the Vie des femmes célèbres, and is further elaborated on in the fourteenth-century poem Ovide moralisé, as an example of women who are scholars to the detriment of their children. Her tale survived mostly as part of Ovid’s legacy. As Ruth Morse notes, “Ovid’s ‘Medea’ radiate out to emphasize women’s threats to order. The logical conclusion is that women in control of knowledge destroy the patriarchal house,” a concept that persisted and was deeply entrenched in the medieval bias against women’s acquisition of knowledge.127 During the early modern period, Medea once again rose to glory and was depicted in plays and ballets. While continuing to represent the stereotypical qualities of a dangerous woman, she acquired more positive aspects, herself becoming a precious prize whose acquisition assisted Jason on his quest. Indeed, Nicola McDonald claims that in the Ovide moralisé, Medea offers salvation and is identified with Christ.128 Medea represents the Greco-Roman cultural possibility of absorbing a multidimensional, conflicted, dualistic female figure that is both beneficial and harmful, holy and defiled. The bias against Medea endured in late antiquity and in medieval Judeo-Christian contexts, forming the basis for Christian representations of the Eden myth. The subsequent discussion of Eve and Lilith will suggest that these two figures both maintained the characteristic meanings embedded in the motif of the woman and the dragon and their relationship to the symbolism of the tree and the serpent, while embodying the split between the conflicting aspects of Medea, as part of the dualistic Judeo-Christian tendencies to map the world into good and evil. This split gave rise to two oppositional sets of representations: those depicting the evil women or demons, and those depicting sacred women and saints.

127 Ruth Morse, The Medieval Medea (Cambridge, UK: Brewer, 1996), pp. 103–236, quote from p. 107; Katherine Heavey, The Early Modern Medea: Medea in English Literature, 1558–1688 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp. 22–83. 128 Nicola McDonald, “‘Diverse Folk Diversely They Seyde’: A Study of the Figure of Medea in Medieval Literature,” doctoral dissertation (Oxford: University of Oxford, 1994), p. 80; Amy Wygant, Medea, Magic, and Modernity in France Stages and Histories, 1553–1797 (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007); Heavey, The Early Modern Medea, pp. 26–43.

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5. Eve and Lilith — Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dragon Abstract: Eve is a key figure for understanding the perception of women in Western Europe throughout the medieval and early modern periods. Examining this figure from the perspective of the woman and dragon motif reveals her unique relationship with the serpent of Eden. Comparing her iconography to that of the Hesperides elucidates Christianity’s misogynistic stereotypes, and demonstrates the shift it instigated in attitudes toward woman. The anguiped serpent represented in the story of Eden is analyzed in the context of Eve’s iconography and of its association with Lilith. Outlining the development of the she-demon motif in magical amulets and its relation to the Eden iconography, this chapter addresses the connection between women and dragons in the context of femininity and childbirth rituals. Key Words: Eve, Serpent of Eden, anguiped, Lilith, childbirth, stereotype.

Having explored the motif of the woman and the dragon in ancient Greco-Roman art and culture, in the current chapter I turn to examine the question of its endurance and transformation over time in the Christian culture of Western Europe. The following discussion will center on the evolution of Eve’s image from late antiquity through the medieval period to early modernity, with an emphasis on the split between the traditional iconography of the Fall, which is based on the biblical narrative, and the iconography of a hybrid female-dragon that I identify as Lilith. As this discussion will demonstrate, the dualistic split between good and evil within Christianity, which consigned the dragon to the role of a hostile creature associated with the devil, cast a negative light on the relationship between women and dragons, which came to be similarly associated with evil. Nevertheless, as the following examples will reveal, the ambivalent nature of this union as both positive and negative persisted, particularly in folk traditions and beliefs, as given expression most notably in apotropaic images. This analysis begins with a reading of the narrative of Eve and her visual representation in the context of the biblical creation myth and the story of Eden.

Khalifa-Gueta, S., The Woman and the Dragon in Premodern Art. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023. doi 10.5117/9789463723572_ch05

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This story, whose origins go back to the beginning of the first millennia BCE, appears to have arisen in opposition to serpent cults, particularly those with female goddesses associated with genesis or fertility, which were popular in the ancient Near-Eastern and Greco-Roman worlds. From this perspective, the Eden myth appears as an inverted reflection of the themes and meanings associated with women and serpents in these cults. Yet as I will demonstrate, the myth of Eve, which aimed to supplant the motif of the woman and the dragon, actually sustained it throughout late antiquity and the Middle Ages, transforming it into an allegory of all women and into a fundamental aspect of Catholic theology, which also influenced visual representations of the Virgin Mary and Saint Margaret.1 In what follows, I focus on early Christian representations of Adam and Eve in the fourth century CE, particularly on sarcophagi and in catacomb frescos, which incorporated earlier aspects of this motif. Significantly, negativity toward the figure of the dragon in the Christian world increased parallel to the flourishing of images representing Eve, so that the assimilation between women and dragons, and the interpretations of their encounter, as erotic and seductive became a stereotype applied to all women. In this context, as I will show, the First Mother was split into Eve and Lilith – with the latter represented as a fertility demon whose origins go back to previously discussed anguiped figures such as Lamia or Medusa. This split, as I will argue, resolved the problems faced by monotheistic religions when confronting the lingering pagan conceptions and beliefs linking anguiped figures with childbirth and the protection of children.

Eve – Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dragon Our enduring understanding of the story of Eve as recounted in the Book of Genesis has been shaped by Christian theological concepts, which overshadow the earlier alliance between the woman, the dragon, and their related attributes – the tree and the fruit. In the Bible, the story of Eve and the serpent begins in the second account of the creation of Man, with the creation of Eve to be “the helper against Adam.”2 As this expression reveals, when Adam asked God to create Eve, she was created from his rib as his extension, yet was meant to function as both a helper and an adversary. Understanding this dualism is essential for an understanding of the binary description of Eve’s relationship with the serpent. 1 Inverted reflection is an accepted scholarly methodology for studying the Bible, which is applied here to the study of the biblical Eve. For further discussion of this methodology, see Yair Zakovitch, Through the Looking Glass: Reflection Stories in the Bible (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2001), in Hebrew. 2 Genesis 2:7–3:24. Author’s translation of the original Hebrew text.

Eve and Lilith — Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dr agon 

Although the lively debate concerning the dating of the Bible and the identity of its authors is far from conclusion, today, most scholars agree that the Bible was written by four main authors: “J,” the “Yahwist” author from Judea, whose text is dated to ca. the tenth century BCE3; E., the “Elohist” author, whose text is dated to ca. the ninth century. D., the “Deuteronomist” author, whose text is dated to ca. the seventh century BCE; and “P,” the representative of the “Priestly” tradition, whose text is dated to the sixth–fifth centuries BCE. Ilana Pardes’ micro-analysis of this heterogeneous text proves that many additional authors took part in forming the stories and authoring this book. Harold Bloom’s The Book of J suggests that “J” was in fact a female author. 4 Batto sustains that the myth of “the Fall” was mainly authored by “J” and “P.”5 Adam and Eve inhabit a garden oasis, which they are meant to serve and enjoy. However, they are confronted with an irresistible temptation: there is one tree – the Tree of the Knowledge concerning good and evil – from which God forbids them to eat, warning them that if they disobey this order, their punishment will be death. The resemblance of this story to that of Pandora – the first woman created in Greek mythology – is remarkable: Pandora is given a box that she ‫ן‬s told not to open, yet cannot not resist the temptation. In Pandora’s early representations, she is not handed a box but rather a jar, an allegory for the female womb.6 Similarly, as we have seen in the previous chapters, a tree, and particularly a fruit tree, is often a symbol of female fertility in Greco-Roman myths, which frequently describe treasure-trees bearing forbidden yet greatly coveted items, which are guarded by a woman and/or a dragon. In these myths, a male protagonist craves the treasure, and induces the woman to assist him in its procurement. In Eve’s story, these elements remain the same, while the participants switch roles – the dragon’s interest is in sharing the treasure, and the man is transformed from the seducer into the one who is seduced. The woman’s role was given the (relatively unwarranted) interpretation of leading men astray,7 which relates the story of Eve to the earlier discussion of Medea. In the Book of Genesis, the serpent offers the fruit to the woman, despite knowing the consequences of eating it – the acquisition of knowledge concerning good and 3 Batto locates him in the court of Solomon; see Bernard F. Batto, Slaying the Dragon: Mythmaking in the Biblical Tradition (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992), p. 45. 4 Harold Bloom, The Book of J, trans. David Rosenberg (New York: Vintage Books, 1991); Batto, Slaying the Dragon, pp. 41–43; Ilana Pardes, Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach (Tel Aviv-Yafo: The United Kibutz, 1996), p. 10. 5 Batto, Slaying the Dragon, pp. 41–43, on the authors of Genesis, see pp. 41–101. 6 “Pandora,” in LIMC, VII/1, p. 164, VII/2, p. 100, fig. 5; H. Parker, “Women and Medicine,” in A Companion to Women in the Ancient World, ed. James and Dillon, p. 112. 7 Neil Forsyth, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 215–216, 221–247; Penny H. Jolly, Made in God’s Image?: Eve and Adam in the Genesis Mosaics at San Marco, Venice (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).

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evil. The serpent understands God’s fear of the power that Man will possess after eating the fruit, but is also aware of the positive influences the fruit will have on humanity.8 In this sense, the serpent/dragon is in fact not the adversary of Man, but rather of God. Significantly, in biblical Hebrew the word for knowledge, “da’at,” also refers to sexual intercourse, so that the etymology of the tree’s name is also related to fertility. Batto, in Slaying the Dragon, suggests that the terms “good and evil” were translated and understood in the ancient Near East as “from top to bottom” or “from beginning to end,” and were not necessarily related to the Christianized interpretation we grant them today.9 In Genesis 4:1, it is said that “Man [Adam] knew Eve,” resulting in her pregnancy. Therefore, in granting the fruit – fertility – to the first mother, the serpent fulfills its role as a fertility divinity. Whereas the pain experienced during childbirth was Eve’s punishment from God, her ability to deliver children was the indirect gift of the serpent. Boria Sax notes that the dragon of Eden, which was upright before its legs were taken away as punishment, is the only animal that speaks in the entire Bible, a detail which, he contends, offers evidence of this myth’s much earlier origin. Significantly, Sax connects this myth to various Mediterranean and Mesopotamian creation myths that depict dragons or women with dragons.10 The serpent in the Eden myth does not behave like an animal but rather like a divine being that talks, walks, and has access to sacred primeval knowledge; as such, it is God’s adversary in a monotheistic realm.11 Thus, the story of the serpent in the garden represents a monotheistic reaction to the soaring popularity of serpent cults in the Near East in the second and first millenniums BCE.12 Moreover, this feature of the myth aligns with many other biblical quotes that describe Yahweh, the Hebrew god, as a warrior who fights dragons: the Book of Job (26:12–13), for instance, likens the parting of the Red Sea to God parting the dragon Rahav.13 The myth of Adam and Eve in the garden thus appears to have been inspired by earlier renditions of the dragon-slayer topos, in which Adam and Eve serve as tools to anger the true adversary of the 8 Karen R. Joines, “The Serpent in the Old Testament,” ThD dissertation (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, 1967), pp. 37–47; Batto, Slaying the Dragon, pp. 60–61. 9 Batto, Slaying the Dragon, p. 59. 10 Boria Sax, The Serpent and the Swan: The Animal Bride in Folklore and Literature (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1998), p. 41. 11 Joines, “The Serpent in the Old Testament,” pp. 57–59. 12 Pierre Saintyves, Les vierges mères et les naissances miraculeuses (Paris: Nourry, 1908); Salomon Reinach, “Le serpent et la femme,” L’anthropologie, 16 (1905), pp. 178–180; Arthur L. Frothingham, “Babylonian Origin of Hermes the Snake-god and of the Caduceus I,” American Journal of Archaeology, 20.2 (1916), pp. 175–211; Waldemar Deonna, “L’arbre, le serpent et la jeune femme,” in Mélanges Henri Grégoire, ed. Henri Gregoire (Brussels: Secrétariat des Éditions de l’Institut, 1949), p. 201, no. 1. All these studies are relatively outdated. 13 Isaiah 27:1; Psalms 91:13; Job 26:12–13; among others.

Eve and Lilith — Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dr agon 

dragon – namely, God. Indeed, the narrative addresses an ancient paradox – that of a male god (or even the only god) as a creator – a role that in nature is exclusively performed by women – alongside the motif of the first mother and the serpent, which pertains to aspects of a Great Mother goddess.14 The name of the tree invites another consideration of binary oppositions – that of good versus evil. As mentioned in the first chapter of this book, prior to the advent of Christianity, the dragon was portrayed as the opponent of a God or a hero, but not necessarily as evil. The early Christian tradition is not consistent, and presents differing perceptions concerning the serpent in the Eden myth. In the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (11:3), Paul refers to the serpent as Satan and as the Antichrist, thus offering a relatively late account of the serpent as the enemy of God.15 This variation is directly linked to the apocryphal collection “Book of Adam,” which creates a direct link between the serpent of Eden and the dragon of the Apocalypse, and explicitly calls it “Satan.” However, in this assembly of textual fragments is marked by various inconsistencies.16 Thus, when Eve tells her story, she presents an entirely contradictory account, in which Satan tempts the serpent and causes it to speak Satan’s words. In both accounts, the evil represented by the serpent is made manifest through carnal or sexual love, which is the cause for the introduction of death into the human world. Thus, the evil aspects of the dragon represent a misogynist perception of all women as an extension of the first women, and as the locus of sin. It is the union of Eve and the dragon that poses the threat to men’s immortality.17 At about the same time that the Pauline epistles were written, in the first century CE, another fairly prevalent early Christian source for this story was the Book of Jubilees (3:17–22), which probably originated in Ethiopia. In this account, however, the serpent is not associated with Satan. Yet since sin comes from matter, in contrast to the spirit, the serpent does not originate in Heaven and is not a fallen angel, but rather an earthly creature originating in matter.18 As mentioned in the first chapter of this book, the Gnostic approach toward the serpent of Eden was fundamentally different: the serpent was considered as the one who granted humanity knowledge (by means of the fruit of the tree). 14 Adrien J. Bledstein, “The Genesis of Humans: The Garden of Eden Revisited,” Judaism, 26.2 (Spring 1977), pp. 194–199. For other dragon-slayer myths in the Bible, see Joines, “The Serpent in the Old Testament”; Forsyth, The Old Enemy, pp. 90–104; Batto, Slaying the Dragon. 15 Lukas Bormann, “Adam and Eve in Paul,” in Adam and Eve Story in the Hebrew Bible and in Ancient Jewish Writings Including the New Testament, eds. Antti Laato and Lotta Valve (Turku, Finland: Åbo Akademi University; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2016), p. 296. 16 Forsyth, The Old Enemy, p. 232, on the Book of Adam: pp. 227–228. 17 Forsyth, The Old Enemy, pp. 212–218. 18 Van Ruiten, “Adam in the Book of Jubilees,” in Adam and Eve Story in the Hebrew Bible, eds. Laato and Valve, pp. 143–175.

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Moreover, Gnosticism views Yahweh as an evil and deceitful god, while the serpent is considered a prefiguration of Christ.19 The most influential episode to describe a dragon as Satan himself, fundamentally changing the perception of the dragon in Christianity, is the description of the combat between it and the Archangel in the Book of Revelation (20:2).20 In some of the myths previously examined in this book, the dragon slayer takes revenge on the dragon for wronging him while it was under the command of a god, while at other times their conflict is one between two world orders, and the dragon is on the losing side. In the biblical myth of Eden, the dragon deliberately proves its divine nature through its actions, thus provoking God’s ire by challenging his interdictions – since it seems that Eve’s behavior was not part of God’s plan. As discussed in previous chapters, the interaction between a woman and a dragon may carry divine and even prophetic significance, yet may also include witchcraft and even murderous intentions. As already noted, this relationship was conceptualized in Greco-Roman visual culture as ultimately beneficial to humanity, but also as a dangerous and distressing union, which came – in the story of Eve – to be considered the ultimate evil. This myth thus also concerns the introduction of humanity to the elementary opposition between the ability to create life and the ultimate reality of death that awaits all beings: in order to create life one must endure pain and the danger of death, whereas death is necessary for nature to be able to rejuvenate and create new life. The fruit that encapsulates both of these aspects thus grants humanity a true understanding of nature and of mortality, endowing it with a superior intellectual ability that elevates it closer to the divine realm.21 After Eve decides to eat the forbidden fruit, and realizes that no harm came to her despite God’s threats, she invites Adam to eat from it as well, yet the biblical account mentions no attempt at convincing him to do so.22 In the aftermath of this act, they are suddenly introduced to new feelings of shame and guilt surrounding their nudity, realizing that their sex organs should not remain exposed.23 This new knowledge of their sexuality is the clearest proof that the fruit in this story is related to fertility. It also suggests the difference between knowledge of sexuality and knowledge pertaining to the heavenly realm, as suggested in the previous chapters; it is precisely due to this dual knowledge of both realms that the type I 19 Gerhart B. Lander, God, Cosmos, and Humankind: The World of Early Christian Symbolism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), p. 79. 20 See the discussion in Chapter One. Forsyth, The Old Enemy, pp. 248–257. 21 Genesis 3:5. Caryl Johnston, Consecrated Venom: The Serpent and the Tree of Knowledge (Edinburgh: Floris Books, 2000), pp. 20–23; Raphi Nusboim, “Meanings in the Parasha of the Tree of Knowledge,” Limudim, 13 (2015–2016), pp. 1–10. 22 Genesis 3:6. 23 Genesis 3:7.

Eve and Lilith — Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dr agon 

refer to as the “holy-defiled” woman was perceived to be problematic, due to her access to knowledge of both these spheres. At this point in the narrative, God seeks out the couple and finds Adam. Adam’s answers to God’s inquiries reveal his shame and guilt, which cause God to realize that he has eaten the forbidden fruit, an act of which God does not seem to have been aware.24 Adam immediately shifts the blame to Eve, who in turn points to the serpent as the culprit. Consequently, God imposes a different curse on each of the participants in this drama: first, the serpent is deprived of its legs – indicating that it originally did have legs. As this example indicates, as seen both in ancient conceptualizations did not distinguish between snakes and dragons, and this fluidity persisted in later visual representations.25 God also instigates feelings of animosity between the woman and the serpent – which can be compared to Perseus’ separation of the woman and the dragon in the Andromeda myth – placing Eve securely within the typology of “the good woman.” Through the agency of the serpent, Yahweh grants Eve the ability to reproduce, yet the pains of labor during childbirth make this gift into a punishment.26 Yahweh also determines that Eve will experience uncontrolled lust for Adam, and consequently that all women will experience such lust for all men,27 a familiar theme in antiquity, as made evident for instance by the association of Medea’s “serpents in the soul” (her sexual appetite) with the idea of women’s irrational and unbridled emotions.28 The stereotype of Medea’s uncontrolled lust becomes, in the story of Eden, a generalized stereotype pertaining to all women, thus making the first mother’s personal choice into a collective female attribute. According to Christian theology, Eve’s uncontrolled lust is the reason for her subordination to Adam. The theme of women leading men astray was also mentioned in the discussion of Medea, specifically in the episode in which she convinces King Aegeus to poison the man whom he does not recognize as his own son. Adam is punished for listening to his wife’s irrational voice with the hard labor of finding food and “eating grass.”29 God also makes Adam work the earth from which he was created and to which he will return – thus adding the punishment of death.30 As Batto concludes, a major theme in this myth is the function of humanity as an intermediary between the animal realm of nakedness and (raw) grass eating, and God’s realm, which involves 24 Genesis 3:9–11. 25 Genesis 3:14. 26 Genesis 3:16. 27 Ibid. 28 Martha C. Nussbaum, “Serpents in the Soul: A Reading of Seneca’s Medea,” in Medea: Essays on Medea in Myth, Literature, Philosophy, and Art, eds. James J. Clauss and Sarah Iles Johnston, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 219–252. 29 Genesis 3:18. 30 Genesis 3:16–19.

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being clothed and eating cooked food (bread). The association of nakedness with the animal realm, a bias that lingered in Christian theology, should be borne in mind when approaching the iconography of Adam and Eve as naked.31 Karen R. Joines and Batto both attribute the origin of the Eden myth to the earlier writer, “J,” who lived at some point during the tenth–eighth centuries BCE. This writer seems to have sought inspiration in related Near Eastern creation myths, and to have entertained a dialogue with them. One such story is the tale of Gilgamesh in the Babylonian creation myth Enuma Elish, in which Utnapishtim gives Gilgamesh a plant that grants him youth, but it is stolen from him by a serpent.32 Joines views serpents in the Near East as symbols of eternity, prophetic knowledge, genesis, and chaos. The etymology of the names itself underscores the connection of this myth to the motif of the woman and the dragon. The Hebrew name for Eve (‫)חוה‬, pronounced Hava or Hawwah, is the Aramaic word for “serpent,” as well as the name of an ancient Assyrian Great Mother goddess associated with genesis. Adam’s (‫ )אדם‬name, meanwhile, is associated with blood, dam in Hebrew, as well as with earth, adama. Moreover, the word for snake in Hebrew is nahash (‫)נחש‬, which shares the same root letters with the verb meaning “guess,” “predict” or “prophesize” – thus alluding to the symbiosis between serpents and oracular, prophetic, divine knowledge.33 Joines and Batto also ponder the inconsistency of Yahweh’s role in the biblical metamorphosis of this myth. Was God mistaken or misleading when he threatened Adam and Eve with death as a punishment for eating the fruit? This question involves a scholarly debate regarding God’s truthfulness: the fruit did not immediately inflict death, as if poisonous, yet it did eventually promote the end of Adam’s life as a result of God’s punishment. These scholars contrast God’s possible deceitfulness with the serpent’s truthfulness – for in no instance in this myth does the serpent appear untruthful; indeed, it may even have been more honest and helpful to the first humans than was God.34 This perspective undermines the Judeo-Christian bias against the serpent as a deceitful, untruthful creature.35 Pre-Christian interpretations of the biblical Eden myth that preceded those of Christianity appear in many variations, such as those in the Book of Ezekiel and the 31 Bledstein, “The Genesis of Humans,” pp. 188–189; Batto, Slaying the Dragon, pp. 56–59; Nusboim, “Meanings in the Parasha of the Tree of Knowledge,” pp. 2–3. 32 Joines, “The Serpent in the Old Testament,” pp. 26–57; Batto, Slaying the Dragon, pp. 41–61; Forsyth, The Old Enemy, pp. 222–235; Daniel Ogden, Drakōn: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 383–384. 33 Bledstein, “The Genesis of Humans,” p. 199; Joines, “The Serpent in the Old Testament,” pp. 6, 31, 40–41; Carolina López-Ruiz, ed., Gods, Heroes, and Monsters: A Sourcebook of Greek, Roman, and Near Eastern Myths in Translation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 89, 91, nn. 42 (for Adam’s name), 45 (although this account does not provide the correct etymological origin of Eve’s name). 34 Joines, “The Serpent in the Old Testament,” pp. 37–47; Batto, Slaying the Dragon, pp. 60–61. 35 Lander, God, Cosmos, and Humankind, p. 73.

Eve and Lilith — Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dr agon 

Enoch literature, among others, which scholars assume reflect a diverse range of earlier mythical narratives. By the time Jewish theological interpretations appeared, they had been influenced by religious ideas of good and evil developed during the Roman Imperial period, and related to salvation. The motif of the woman and the dragon in the story changed accordingly, and the alliance between Eve and the dragon as two representatives of evil and temptation began to form, as part of a larger binary structure of good versus evil. In the fourth century CE, early Christianity gave rise to a proliferation of mystery cults, and was significantly influenced by dualistic Zoroastrian concepts of good and evil. However, interpretations that viewed women as easily persuaded and seduced, and blamed them for all of humanity’s miseries, were based on concepts developed in the context of Christianity.36 Early Christian theological interpretations of the Eden myth, which persist to this day, perceived the serpent as Satan, and described it as God’s adversary, which was responsible for humanity’s Original Sin. In the New Testament, Jesus is conceptualized as the new Adam, whose death delivers the world from this sin and reopens the gates of Heaven (Eden) for humanity to reenter.37 The motif of the serpent encircling a tree, which appears in the Eden myth, was discussed in previous chapters as a symbol of fertility and liminality related to ancient fertility rituals, in which women communicated with and served as mistresses of serpents. In Roman artistic representations, the serpent was associated 36 Ezekiel 28:12–17; “Genesis Apocryphon,” in Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library: Non-Biblical Texts (Leiden: Brill): Qumran text 1Q20:1–26: https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/dead-sea-scrollselectronic-library-non-biblical-texts; Second Epistle to the Corinthians 11:3; First Timothy 2:9–14; Peter 3:19–21. Forsyth, The Old Enemy, pp. 221–247; Batto, Slaying the Dragon, p. 96. For additional textual sources and debates on the Eden myth, see Laato and Valve, Adam and Eve Story. For a sample of debates on the nature of women in Christian theology, see Forsyth, The Old Enemy, pp. 214–229; Kristen E. Kvam, Linda S. Schearing and Valarie H. Ziegler, eds., Eve and Adam: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Readings on Genesis and Gender (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999); Pamela Norris, Eve: A Biography (New York: New York University Press, 1999); John R. Levison, Texts in Transition: The Greek Life of Adam and Eve (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000); Robert Doran, “To Bear or Not to Bear: The Argument for Abstinence in the Greek Gospel of the Egyptians,” in Women and Gender in Ancient Religions: Interdisciplinary Approaches, eds. Stephen P. Ahearne-Kroll, Paul A. Holloway and James A. Kelhoffer (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), pp. 177–188, particularly p. 182–183. For religious concepts during the Roman Imperial period, see Franz Cumont, The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism (Kila: Mont, 1911); Johannes Leipoldt, Religionsgeschichte des Orients in der Zeit der Weltreligionen (Leiden: Brill, 1961); Mary Barnett, Gods and Myths of the Romans (London: Brockhampton Press, 1996); Jaime Alvar, Romanising Oriental Gods: Myth, Salvation and Ethics in the Cults of Cybele, Isis and Mithras (Leiden: Brill, 2008). 37 Romans 5:14–19; First Epistle to the Corinthians 15:47; Justin Martyr, The First Apology, preface. John Kaye (Edinburgh: J. Grant, 1912): 28:1. Forsyth, The Old Enemy, p. 305, which also addresses Justin’s connection between the serpent of Eden and the dragon-Satan of the Apocalypse; Rut Bartal, Earthly Love–Divine Love: The Biblical Couple as Reflected in Western Art (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2009), pp. 155–160 (in Hebrew); Bormann, “Adam and Eve in Paul,” in Adam and Eve Story in the Hebrew Bible, eds. Laato and Valve, pp. 298–311.

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with the cycle of life that results in mortality and rejuvenation, as manifested by its spiral, upward movement as it coils around the tree. This symbolic movement is emblematic of the philosophical concept of emanation: the soul’s movement up to celestial spheres and down to material spheres. In a Christian context, these concepts were given visual expression in representations of the Eden story.38 Fourth-century sarcophagi reliefs and catacomb frescoes representing Adam and Eve, such as the ceiling fresco of the Roman Coemeterium Maius and the detail representing Adam and Eve on the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, dated to ca. 359 CE, in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome (fig. 40), show a remarkable resemblance to GrecoRoman depictions of dragon mistresses such as the Hesperides or Medea (figs. 33, 35). In these fourth-century scenes of Eden, a woman stands naked alongside a tree, with a serpent coiled around it; there is a round fruit between the serpent and the woman; Adam stands naked as well, immobile and passive. Without prior knowledge of the myth behind the images, it would not be clear who is giving the fruit to whom, nor is it clear whether the woman steals the fruit from the dragon, or whether the dragon grants it as a gift to the woman. Both iconographies stress the profanation of the holy scenario. Consistent with the motif of the woman and the dragon, the Eden myth as represented in these images traces the path of knowledge from the dragon, who communicates solely with Eve, to Eve, who in turn passes the knowledge gleaned from the serpent and the fruit on to Adam. There are several changes to this ancient pattern in the Eden myth: the dragon is not protective of the tree’s treasure but longs to give it to the woman, whereas the male figure does not long for the treasure, yet does not reject it when it is offered to him. In a manner reminiscent of the myth of the Hesperides, in which one of them is tricked by Hercules and tricks the dragon, in the Eden myth the serpent is honest and direct with the woman. The paradigm shift in the roles of the narrative’s protagonists introduces a difference that reflects the Judeo-Christian context, in which the alliance of the woman with the dragon is shaped by sin. As such, the alliance acquires negative meanings pertaining to sexual desire or consummation, which also contaminate Man.39 38 Plotinus, Ennead 5:1:6:2–8, 5:2:1:5–10. Doro Levi, “Aion,” Hesperia: Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 13.4 (October– December 1944), pp. 269–314; Howard M. Jackson, “The Meaning and Function of the Leontocephaline in Roman Mithraism,” Numen, 32.1 (July 1985), pp. 17–45; Roger Beck, Planetary Gods and Planetary Orders in the Mysteries of Mithras (Leiden: Brill, 1988), pp. 54–57. For more information about Plotinus’s concept of emanation, see Lloyd Gerson, “Plotinus’s Metaphysics: Emanation or Creation?,” Review of Metaphysics, 46.3 (March 1993), pp. 559–574; Theo G. Sinnige, Six Lectures on Plotinus and Gnosticism (Dordrecht: Springer Science and Business Media, 1999), pp. 5–13. 39 Alexander C. Soper, “The Latin Style on Christian Sarcophagi of the Fourth Century,” Art Bulletin, 19.2 (January 1937), pp. 148–202; Bartal, Earthly Love–Divine Love, pp. 36, 89; Gerhart B. Ladner, God, Cosmos, and Humankind: The World of Early Christian Symbolism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 72–73; Elizabeth S. Malbon, The Iconography of the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus: Neofitus iit ad Deum (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), pp. 59–67.

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Figure 40 – Adam and Eve, 359 CE, detail of marble high-relief on the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, Treasury, Saint Peter’s Basilica, Rome © Giovanni Dall’Orto, public domain.

In his examination of parallel stories concerning the creation of Man in the Ancient Near East, Batto notes that many of them are related to sex and sexuality, such as the myth of the semi-beast Enkidu, who has intercourse with a harlot in order to acquire intelligence. Adrien J. Bledstein examines the structure of early Near Eastern creation myths that equate fertility and sexual intercourse. According to her, the Eden myth is innovative in its separation between fertility and sexuality. Yet based on the analysis presented in the current chapter, Bledstein’s argument is difficult to accept, since the mythical text is replete with symbols of both sexuality and fertility that are entangled together; most notable among them is the verb “knew,” used to indicate the couple’s intercourse, which results in pregnancy at the end of the story. This verb is directly related to the consumption of the fruit, which introduces the first man and woman to their own genitals and to knowledge of fertility and sexuality. 40 Forsyth directs attention away from Eve’s craving for the fruit to the serpent’s temptation and sexual seduction of Eve, as it is described in early Christian writings. This explicit sexual connotation is another reason for Eve’s portrayal as naked in the early stages of her iconography, which is extremely 40 Genesis 4:1.

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consistent. In this sense, her depiction also relates her to images of Aphrodite, since she directs the viewer’s attention to her genitals and breasts. Batto stresses that Eve and Adam’s nudity creates an affinity between them and the animal realm, thus charging the depiction of the naked couple with a suggestion of inferiority. This inferior nature is stressed in the introductory description of the serpent in the Hebrew Bible as arom, a term that can be translated as both “naked” and “cunning.”41 The inversion of the gender roles represented by the characters in visual depictions of this myth builds on earlier concepts of gender. Whereas in texts from antiquity and the Middle Ages, men are conceptualized as active while women are passive, in the Eden myth these roles are reversed. The woman is the active agent, not only deciding to eat the fruit but also giving it to Adam. Bledstein rightly states that, although Adam blamed Eve for tempting him to eat the fruit, there is no record of her doing more than just giving it to him. Adam, meanwhile, is described as passive; moreover, he shirks responsibility for his actions by putting the blame on Eve when caught by God. This division of gender roles corresponds to the ancient myths about women and dragons examined in the previous chapters: Medea helps Jason by orchestrating the dragon’s deception, and the Hesperides deceive Ladon and bring the apple to Hercules, who sits passively by. Early visual depictions of the Eden myth underscore this trope of male passivity and female activity, as seen in the catacomb fresco from Coemeterium Maius, where Adam stands with both his hands behind his back, while Eve’s hand is stretched toward the fruit (the serpent is not visible here). 42 Although the Virgin Mary is considered the opposite of Eve, she too is sometimes represented in Christian art alongside a dragon. Mary was contrasted with Eve, the earlier Great Mother, and was seen as destined to reverse Eve’s original sin.43 Thus, 41 First Timothy 2:9–14; Peter 3:19–21; Simo Parpola, ed., The Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh: Cuneiform Text, Transliteration, Glossary, Indices and Sign List (Helsinki: NATCP, 1997): 1.4.29; Augustine of Hippo, City of God, abridged. and trans. J. W. C. Wand (London: Oxford University Press, 1963): 13, 14.17–24. Bledstein, “The Genesis of Humans,” pp. 190–191; Forsyth, The Old Enemy, pp. 214–217, 340–341; Batto, Slaying the Dragon, pp. 56–59; Bartal, Earthly Love–Divine Love. 42 Bledstein, “The Genesis of Humans,” p. 196; Louis Rèau, Iconographie de l’art chrètien (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1955–1959), p. 86; Jiménez M. T. Priego, “Un programa iconológico perdido, recuperado: Pinturas de la iglesia nueva de Guadalupe, de Juan García de Miranda,” Espacio, tiempo y forma, 7.5 (1992), pp. 263–314, particularly pp. 273–275; Edgar Wind, The Religious Symbolism of Michelangelo (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 58–63; Bartal, Earthly Love–Divine Love, pp. 55–57; Andrea Fiore, “Un lungo equivoco: I Santi Giacomo Minore e Filippo’ di Paolo Veronese da Lecce a Dublino,” Prospettiva: Rivista di storia dell’arte antica e moderna, 163 (2016), pp. 148–163, particularly p. 154, figs. 3, 9. 43 Justin Martyr, “Dialogue with Trypho,” in Ante-Nicene Fathers, eds. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. Marcus Dods and George Reith (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing, 1885); Justin Martyr, “Dialogue with Trypho,” in New Advent, ed. Kevin Knight: 84: http://www.newadvent. org/fathers/01286.htm; Irenaeus de Lyon, “Against Heresies,” in Ante-Nicene Fathers, eds. Roberts, Donaldson and Coxe (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing, 1885): 3.22.4, 5.19.1. Walter J. Burghardt, “Mary in

Eve and Lilith — Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dr agon 

Figure 41 – Mary with Child Trampling a Reptilian, 1220–1288, architectural sculpture from the Amiens Cathedral, Amiens © Steven Zucker.

depictions of calcatio colli (trampling the enemy), in which Mary ritually tramples the serpent at her feet, appear in Gothic sculpture from the thirteenth century on, for example, in the sculpture Mary with Child Trampling a Reptilian in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame d’Amiens (fig. 41). This motif remains greatly under-investigated, despite the fact that the early modern iconography of Mary appearing alongside Eve, with the serpent under the Virgin’s feet, grew in popularity in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Anne Dunlop counted eighteen surviving examples of this iconography in Italy, including Carlo da Camerino’s The Madonna of Humility with the Temptation of Eve (fig. 42). Dunlop surveys documents by Dominican friars who followed the early doctrine of Justin Martyr, which views Mary as nullifying Eve’s sin, while also pointing to the affinities between these two figures. She contends that the suggested relationship between the two is not necessarily conceived as one of contrast, since they both represent the Christian doctrine regarding the human nature of Jesus, inspired by ancient medical thought, according to which one’s flesh is inherited from the mother, while the spirit comes from the father. From this Eastern Patristic Thought,” in Mariology, ed. Juniper B. Carol (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1957), II, pp. 75–105, II, pp. 88–89; Forsyth, The Old Enemy, pp. 340–341; Teresa P. Reed, Shadows of Mary: Reading the Virgin Mary in Medieval Texts (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003), pp. 22–29; Rosemary R. Ruether, Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), p. 150; Bartal, Earthly Love–Divine Love, pp. 160–167.

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Figure 42 – Carlo da Camerino, The Madonna of Humility with the Temptation of Eve, ca. 1405, tempera on panel, Holden Collection: Cleveland Museum of Art (No. 16.795) © public domain from Cleveland Museum.

Eve and Lilith — Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dr agon 

perspective, Mary is the descendant of Eve, and both represent all women. This relationship is particularly pronounced in Italian art and culture. 44 The iconography of the Fall of Man remained fairly stable over time. The earliest book illustration, also defined as the first narrated image sequence of this myth, is the Vienna Genesis, dated to the sixth century, at the Austrian National Library, Vienna, which depicts the couple in a heraldic composition on either side of the tree. In contrast to the iconography developed later on, the serpent does not appear in the first part of these narrative paintings, yet does reemerge in the depiction of the Expulsion. In the majority of artworks, the Eden iconography remained stable over the centuries, as evident for instance in the twelfth century Adam and Eve mosaic in the Capella Palatina in Palermo (fig. 43). Another example is the portrayal of Adam and Eve in the Monreale Cathedral in Sicily, which depicts the couple in a heraldic position on either side of the tree, with the serpent encircling it or appearing at its side. On many other occasions, the narrated scenario represents Eve conversing alone with the serpent, thus enhancing her connection with it and underscoring their mutual blame for the temptation, as seen for example in folio 5b of the ninth-century Moutier-Grandval Bible from Tours, now in the British Library, London. 45 As demonstrated above, the connection between Eve and the Eden serpent is established through various means, with an emphasis on the theme of sexuality, which is reviled in visual interpretations of the myth and is stressed by Catholic theology. Moreover, during the late medieval period and the early Renaissance, the Cathar heresies, which stemmed from Eastern traditions yet flourished in Western Europe, and particularly in France, preached that the serpent and Eve had actually engaged in sexual intercourse. This interpretation of the myth is also echoed in the anonymous Hebrew work Sefer HaBahir, in which the serpent is described as having sexual intercourse with Eve and impregnating her. The Genesis Raba Midrash offers a similar interpretation of the “serpents in the soul” theme, pertaining to the easily tempted nature of women as a universal female quality originating in Eve. This interpretation of the Eden myth as an allegory of female nature was adopted by Christian theologians such as Peter Comestor (ca. 1100–1180). It was also present in Maimonides’ twelfth-century A Guide for the 44 Jeffrey M. Hoffeld, “Adam’s Two Wives,” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 26.10 (1968), pp. 430–440, particularly p. 436; Anne Dunlop, “Flesh and the Feminine: Early-Renaissance Images of the Madonna with Eve at Her Feet,” Oxford Art Journal, 25.2 (2002), pp. 127–148. 45 Marjorie C. Swern, “The Iconography of the Creation of Adam and Eve in Early Christian Manuscript Recensions,” MA thesis (Ohio State University, Columbus, 1965), pp. 22–40; Barbara Zimmermann, Die Wiener Genesis im Rahmen der antiken Buchmalerei: Ikonographie, Darstellung, Illustrationsverfahren und Aussageintention (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2003), pp. 68–83; Ingo F. Walther and Norbert Wolf, Codices illustres: The World’s Most Famous Illuminated Manuscripts, 400 to 1600 (Cologne: Taschen, 2005), pp. 58–61.

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Figure 43 – Adam and Eve, 1143, mosaic, Palatine Chapel, Palermo © akg-images.

Perplexed, in which each character in the myth is described as an allegory for the human soul and the forces that struggle within it. These sources all view Eve as a female stereotype, whose communication with the serpent and her alliance with it are indicative of her seductive and malicious character, which has been passed along to all women. As this discourse developed over the centuries, it gave rise to an even more evil rendition of Eve – Lilith. The myth of Lilith takes the motif of the woman and the dragon to the extreme: not only is she married to a dragon, she

Eve and Lilith — Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dr agon 

is also – like Medusa and Lamia – a hybrid demon, half-female and half-dragon, who exists on the margins of society. 46

Lilith – The She-Demon of Childbirth In the eleventh century, visual representations of the Eden story reveal a split into two distinct iconographies. Alongside the early Christian iconography, which would continue into the sixteenth century and beyond, a new iconography began representing the serpent with a human head, most frequently a woman’s head. This new iconography, found for instance in the Vaticana Pal. Lat Bible, dated to 1080–1090, in the Vatican Library, Rome (fig. 44), became more pronounced in the thirteenth century. Examples of it also exist in monumental sculpture, such as the relief under the feet of Mary in the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris (fig. 45), and in a thirteenth-century miniature illustration in the Queen Mary Psalter, BL Royal 2 B VII, folio 3v, at the British Museum, London. Italian High-Renaissance artists similarly created paintings that represented and explored this iconography, such as Raphael’s ceiling fresco of Adam and Eve in the Stanza della Segnatura, Rome, and Titian’s painting of The Fall of Man at the Prado Museum, Madrid (where the serpent is represented as a demon-cupid). 47 This portrayal of the Eden serpent as an anguiped who is half-woman and half-serpent, known in Latin as a dracontopede, has long fascinated and puzzled scholars. The motif of a serpent with a woman’s head is related to representations of dangerous and deadly monsters such as Echidna, Scylla and Lamia, which were mentioned in the previous chapters. 48 In what follows, I will argue that this figure is to be understood as a representation of Lilith. 46 “Genesis: Vaikare Adam,” in Midrash Rabbah Koheleth, ed. Samson Dunsky (Montreal: Sh. Dunski Medresh Fond, 1973): 20.45.20; Maimonides (RAMBAM), The Guide for the Perplexed, trans. Michael Friedländer (London: Routledge, 1904): 2.30. Bernard Hamilton and Janet Hamilton, eds. and trans., Christian Dualist Heresies in the Byzantine World, c. 650–c. 1450: Selected Sources (Manchester: Macnhester University Press, 1998), pp. 204–205; Shlomit Lederman, “The Face of the Serpent as the Face of Eve,” in Image and Sound: Art, Music, History, ed. Yerachmiel Cohen (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center for the History of Israel, 2007), pp. 87–105, particularly pp. 92–94, 101–102 (in Hebrew). 47 See note 19. John K. Bonnell, “The Serpent with a Human Head in Art and in Mystery Play,” American Journal of Archaeology, 21.3 (1917), pp. 255–291, particularly pp. 263, 265–278, which incorrectly states that a narrative iconography emerged only in the ninth century, proven by the Vienna Genesis; Edward B. Garrison, “Note on the Iconography of the Creation and of the Fall of Man in Eleventh and Twelfth Century Rome,” Studies in the History of Mediaeval Italian Painting, 14 (1960), pp. 201–210; Bartal, Earthly Love–Divine Love, pp. 53–59. 48 On the history and definition of the word dracontopede, see Henry A. Kelly, “The Metamorphoses of the Eden Serpent during the Middle Ages and Renaissance,” Viator, 2 (1972), pp. 301–328, particularly p. 323.

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Figure 44 – Adam and Eve, 1080–1090, miniature illumination, Vaticana Pal. Lat. Bible: 537, fol. 37r, from Umbro-Roman, Vatican Library, Rome © Vatican library.

Alice Kemp-Welch was the first scholar who studied this image in depth, argued in her 1902 article “The Woman-Headed Serpent in Art” that the anguiped image arose following the dissemination of Gnostic concepts in Europe. She related the female headed-serpent to the Gnostic belief that the Jewish Yahweh was Yaldabaoth – the false God – and that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was in fact a reincarnation of Sophia (Wisdom), who descended from higher spheres to grant humans divine wisdom. In Gnosticism, the serpent on the tree in Eden is viewed as a prefiguration of Christ, as illustrated in the engraving The Crucified Serpent by Nicolas Flamel in R. Abrahami’s Eleazaris Uraltes Chymisches, which depicts the serpent on the

Eve and Lilith — Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dr agon 

Figure 45 – Adam and Eve, 1160–1260, relief under the feet of Mary, Portal of the Virgin, Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris © Jebulon, public domain, Wikimedia.

cross, in accordance with the Gnostic view of Christ as an amorphous spiritual concept from which Sophia emanates. 49 Another hypothesis concerning the origins of the dracontopede image is offered in Bonnell’s “The Serpent with the Human Head in Art and in Mystery Play.” Bonnell amasses citations from medieval mystery plays of Adam that describe the serpent as having a human head. In his article, Bonnel preferred the word 49 Alice Kemp-Welch, “The Woman-Headed Serpent in Art,” Nineteenth Century and After: A Monthly Review, 52.310 (1902), pp. 983–991; Philip S. Alexander, “The Fall into Knowledge: The Garden of Eden/ Paradise in Gnostic Literature,” in A Walk in the Garden: Biblical, Iconographical and Literary Images of Eden, eds. Paul Morris and Deborah F. Sawyer (Sheffield, UK: JSOT, 1992), pp. 91–104; Jeffrey J. Kripal, The Serpent’s Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).

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“human” to “woman” in the title, to avoid inconsistencies in his article, since the head in this iconography is generally that of a woman, often resembling Eve herself, whereas only men performed in mystery plays.50 Bonnell also too easily dismisses Comestor’s quotation of the twelfth century text: Elegit etiam quoddam genus serpentis, ut ait Beda, virgineum vultum habens, quia similia similibus applaudunt (He also chose a certain kind of serpent, as Beda says, which had the countenance of a virgin, because like favors like).51 Vincent de Beauvais also refers to Beda as the source for the female-headed serpent.52 Comestor’s text was also attended to in Henry A. Kelly’s “The Metamorphoses of the Eden Serpent During the Middle Ages and Renaissance,” followed by Nona C. Flores’s “Effigies Amicitiae … Veritas Inimicitiae”: Antifeminism in the Iconography of the Woman-Headed Serpent in Medieval and Renaissance Art and Literature.” Kelly suggests that Comestor was the one who provided the inspiration for the image of the human-headed serpent, which raises the question of how familiar his writings were at the time. However, Kelly’s hypothesis is problematic in light of the illustration of an anguiped in the scene of the Fall included in the Vaticana Pal. Lat. Bible (fig. 44), which predates Comestor by a century.53 I suggest an alternative hypothesis, arguing that the emergence of this iconography stems from the visual transformation of the motif of the woman and the dragon. Flores follows Kelly by broadening the scope of the discussion to include the frequent portrayals of vipers with human torsos, sirens (mermaids), harpies, sphinx, and scorpions, all of which were described as having a human head or torso. These creatures were considered monstrosities, deviations existing within nature, and were associated with seduction and hubris. Based on this evidence, Flores identified features of the dracontopede image that allude to sexuality and promiscuity, claiming that the attribute of the crown constitutes a misogynist representation of the supposedly female sin of pride. When the crown and the aristocratic hairstyle are combined with the woman’s seductive torso, the allusion is to high-class women as being particularly dangerous because of their tendency to vanity.54 50 Though Bonnell claimed that the performers were effeminate, they were nonetheless men (Bonnell, “The Serpent with a Human Head in Art and in Mystery Play,” p. 280). 51 Peter Comestor, Historia scholastica (Strasbourg: Georg Husner, 1505): 1.21: as translated in Kelly, “The Metamorphoses of the Eden Serpent,” p. 308. 52 Vincent of Beauvais, “Speculum naturale,” in Speculum Quadruplex, sive, Speculum Maius: Naturale, doctrinale, morale, historiale (Graz: Akademische Druck – u. Verlagsanstalt, 1964–1965): 20.33. 53 Bonnell, “The Serpent with a Human Head,” pp. 255–291; Kelly, “The Metamorphoses of the Eden Serpent”; Nona C. Flores, “‘Eff igies Amicitiae … Veritas Inimicitiae’,” in Animals in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays, ed. Nona C. Flores (New York: Garland, 1996), pp. 167–195. 54 Michael J. Curley, trans., Physiologus (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2009): 12. Flores, “‘Eff igies Amicitiae … Veritas Inimicitiae’,” in Animals in the Middle Ages, Flores, pp. 179–183; Timothy K. Beal, Religion and Its Monsters (New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 4; Irven M. Resnick and Kenneth

Eve and Lilith — Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dr agon 

In “The Serpent with a Matron’s Face: Medieval Iconography of Satan in the Garden of Eden,” which also examined the antifeminist aspects of this iconography, Frances Gussenhoven notes that the woman forming the upper part of the dracontopede has the long hair of a maiden ready for marriage in some cases, while in others she wears the head covering of a married woman or matron. These differences led Gussenhoven to conclude that the dracontopede in this visual narrative was disguised as a matron in order to appear convincing to Eve and gain her confidence, so that she could be more easily seduced. Gussenhoven thus follows Kelly and Flores in arguing that all kinds of female hybrids representing seduction and deceit must be considered part of a larger antifeminist discourse concerned with the demonization of women.55 In “The Face of the Serpent as the Face of Eve,” Shlomit Lederman claims that this iconography sprang from propaganda against heresy. She contends that following the adoption of Gnostic ideas concerning intercourse between Eve and the serpent by the Cathar heresy, the propaganda against Catharism sought to associate the sexual aspect of the Eden myth with forbidden sexual acts presumed to have taken place during those heretical rituals. Lederman also found rabbinical writings and discussions, which she identified as defending against anti-Semitic accusations of a connection between the Jews and the Cathar heretics. To avoid any hint of possible intercourse between Eve and the serpent in the Eden myth, Jewish illuminators chose to depict a female dracontopede in manuscripts, such as in the Add. MS 11639, 520B in the London Library, and the Kaufmann MS A77/1–5, 70 in the Hungarian Magyar Tudományos Akadémia.56 Flores relies on Comestor’s “similia similibus applaudunt” (like favors like),57 arguing that since the serpent is represented with the head of a woman, it alludes to the similarities between Eve, as the mother of all women, and the devil. This argument, however, ignores the ancient and deep-rooted association between women and dragons discussed throughout the current study, and thus fails to recognize that such representations of the relationship between Eve and the serpent are rooted F. Kitchell, “‘The Sweepings of Lamia’: Transformations of the Myths of Lilith and Lamia,” in Religion, Gender, and Culture in the Pre-Modern World, eds. Alexandra Cuffel and Brian Britt (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 77–104, particularly pp. 79–80; Nienke Vos and Willemien Otten, eds., Demons and the Devil in Ancient and Medieval Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 2011), p. 180. 55 Flores, “‘Eff igies Amicitiae … Veritas Inimicitiae’,” in Animals in the Middle Ages, Flores; Frances Gussenhoven, “The Serpent with a Matron’s Face: Medieval Iconography of Satan in the Garden of Eden,” European Medieval Drama, 4 (2001), pp. 207–230. 56 Add. MS 11639.520B; Kaufmann MS A77/1–5.70. Jeffrey B. Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972), pp. 161–163; Lederman, “The Face of the Serpent as the Face of Eve,” in Image and Sound, Y. Cohen, pp. 93–98, 100–103. 57 Comestor, Historia scholastica: 1.121, Pl. 198.1072. Translation from Kelly, “The Metamorphoses of the Eden Serpent,” p. 308.

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in ancient myths that endured in folk traditions. Even Bonnell, who remarks that the origin of such anguiped images goes back to antiquity, yet is hesitant about claiming a direct influence traceable back to ancient sources.58 Georges Hulin’s “Nos premiers parents dans l’art: Adam, Eve, Lilith,” and Jeffrey M. Hoffeld’s “Adam’s Two Wives,” conclude that the dracontopede is a specific figure – namely, Lilith. Hulin focuses on a fifteenth-century book illustration of Adam and Eve, from the Collection of Count Wiczeck at Kreuzenstein, which depicts the serpent giving the forbidden fruit to a female figure standing beside the tree, whom he identifies as Lilith, while the primeval couple stands on its other side. Bonnell, who analyzes a related illustration, similarly states that: “It would not occur to anyone to say that the artist had represented two Eves!” However, the common use of synchronic narratives in medieval illustrations – in which one figure appears twice performing different actions – refutes Hulin’s hypothesis. Hulin’s claim that the second female looks drastically different from Eve should also be refuted, as the two figures appear in fact to represent the same person from different angles. Otherwise, Hulin’s assertion that Medusa’s medieval images were the source of the dracontopede image in depictions of Adam and Eve’s Fall and in images of Lilith is valid. Hoffeld also provides several explanations for his identification of the dracontopede figure with Lilith, yet his argument is problematic. This chapter follows the lead taken by Kelly, Flores, and Gussenhoven’s arguments for a connection between the dracontopede image and the sirens, sphinxes, vipers and scorpions depicted with a woman’s torso. These grotesque images represented evil, seductive, and destructive female figures, and prompted a discourse on women’s pride and sexual allure. The current study, however, relies on earlier evidence, claiming that the dracontopede had a specific purpose that distinguished it from other, related representations. As I will aim to show, this iconography bears the visual imprint of the motif of the woman and the dragon, which lends the image of Lilith an apotropaic function. Given the persistence of the ancient tradition of depicting anguiped deities associated with fertility, such as Wadjet, Lamia and Medusa, it is likely that the images of Lilith and other similar f igures merged with the images of anguipeds that were associated with this ancient iconography. Enduring in folk traditions and on magical images, such representations associated women and dragons not only with evil, but also with reproduction and mortality.59 As noted, images of Medusa endured on magical fertility amulets during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. The association of images of Medea with Hera 58 Bonnell, “The Serpent with a Human Head,” pp. 264–265, 290, n. 290; Flores, “‘Effigies Amicitiae … Veritas Inimicitiae’,” in Animals in the Middle Ages, Flores, pp. 167–195. 59 Bonnell, “The Serpent with a Human Head,” pp. 278–279; Georges Hulin, “Nos premiers parents dans l’art: Adam, Eve, Lilith,” Mélanges Hulin de Loo (1931), pp. 116–122; Hoffeld, “Adam’s Two Wives.”

Eve and Lilith — Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dr agon 

Akraia, and the sculpture Terror, which might have represented Lamia or Mormo, were discussed in the previous chapters as apotropaic images designed to protect children from harm and address concerns related to fertility. Images of Lilith seem to have functioned in the same way, probably originating in the figure of the demon Lilu (Lila), who appears in Assyrian and Babylonian texts as a threat to fertility.60 Like the Gorgon images, she is most often depicted as a winged woman. Her name appears once in the Old Testament, and is translated in Jerome’s Vulgate as “Lamia,” and in other variations as “Sibyl” or “Siren.” These translations prove the entrenched connection between Lilith, apotropaic images of fertility demons, and images of the holy union binding women and serpents. Naama Vilozny follows Hulin’s theory in order to forge a connection between Lilith and Medusa, particularly with respect to their similar wings and long hair, as well as to their function as apotropaic images. In Hebrew, the name Lilith is also the name of a nocturnal predatory bird, and is associated with the word “night” (laila). Lilith is also mentioned in the Qumran scrolls as a nocturnal female demon.61 The myth of Lilith is most clearly represented in Ben-Sira’s second-century BCE Sirach Midrash, which has survived in a text dated to the ninth century CE. 60 For only a few examples, see “Enûma Eliš”: Joshua J. Mark, “Enuma Elish, The Babylonian Epic of Creation—Full Text,” Ancient History Encyclopedia: 12: www.ancient.eu/article/225; “Arslan Tash I and II,” in Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions, ed. and trans. John C. L. Gibson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), III; “Tree of Souls,” in Sepher Raziel ha Malakh: Book of Raziel, trans. Giovanni Grippo (Steinbach: G. G. Publisher, 2010): 224; “Lilith’s Cave,” in Sepher Raziel ha Malakh, Grippo: 110. 61 Isaiah 34:14. Hulin, “Nos premiers parents dans l’art,” p. 118; Thorkild Jacobsen, The Sumerian King List (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939), pp. 18, 90, 91, n. 37; Alexander Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), p. 94; Bernard Goldman, “The Asiatic Ancestry of the Greek Gorgon,” Berytus, 14 (1961), pp. 1–23, p. 18; Biblical Encyclopedia (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1962), pp. 498–499 (in Hebrew); Raphael Patai, “Lilith,” Journal of American Folklore, 77.306 (1964), pp. 295–314, particularly pp. 295–296; Hoffeld, “Adam’s Two Wives,” p. 432; Siegmund Hurwitz, Lilith, the First Eve: Historical and Psychological Aspects of the Dark Feminine, fore. Marie-Louise von Franz, trans. Gela Jacobson (Einsiedeln, Switzerland: Daimon, 1992), pp. 63–84; Jeffrey Spier, “Medieval Byzantine Magical Amulets and Their Tradition,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 56 (1993), pp. 25–62; Joseph Naveh, “Fragments of an Aramaic Magic Book from Qumran,” Israel Exploration Journal, 48.3–4 (1998), pp. 252–261, particularly pp. 253, 258; Gary Vikan, “Two Byzantine Amuletic Armbands and the Group to Which They Belong,” Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, 49.50 (1991–1992), pp. 33–51; Resnick and Kitchell, “The Sweepings of Lamia,” in Religion, Gender, and Culture, ed. Cuffel and Britt, pp. 84–86; Dorit Rosenzweig, Lilith, a Demon with a Borderline Personality Disorder: The First 1000 Years of Jewish Lilith (Tel Aviv: DoLa Publishing, 2010), pp. 175–219 (in Hebrew); Naama Vilozny, “Figure and Image in Magic and Popular Art: Between Babylonia and Palestine during the Roman and Byzantine Periods,” doctoral dissertation, (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2010), in Hebrew; Naama Vilozny, Lilith’s Hair and Ashmodai’s Horns: Figure and Shape in Magic and Folk Art; Between Babylon to the Land of Israel in Late Antiquity (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 2017), pp. 148–151 (in Hebrew); Katie Maguire, “The Ritualization of Time in the Qumran Community,” Paper presented at Ways of Knowing conference (Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, October, 27–29, 2016).

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This Midrashic texts attempts to resolve the inconsistencies between Chapter One (26–30) and Chapter Two (7–25) of the Book of Genesis, in which man and woman are created simultaneously, and are thus equals, while in the following chapter the man is brought to life first and then the woman originates from his rib, which emblematizes the superiority of men over women.62 In the Midrashic story, Lilith is assumed to have been Adam’s first spouse, brought to life in the first creation episode, in which both were equal. According to the Midrash, Lilith does not accept Adam as her superior, and in her desire to preserve her equality, she abandons him. She chooses to marry Samael, the king of demons (described several times as a dragon), and becomes not only a demon herself, but also the mother of all demons. When her demon offspring are persecuted and destroyed, she vows to avenge her children by killing human infants and undermining women’s fertility. She is the demon who afflicts women in labor and infants, and prevents women from conceiving a child. She enters men’s dreams and seduces them, causing them to spill their seed (sperm), an act that is considered sinful in Judaism.63 In order to understand how Lilith is related to the motif of the woman and the dragon, it is necessary to explore magical amulets bearing images of dragons, which are among the earliest and most fundamental in the arsenal of magic: although several of his claims have been challenged, Campbell Bonner’s Studies in Magical Amulets: Chiefly Graeco-Egyptian is still considered one of the most important bodies of research ever conducted on first–fourth-century CE Greco-Roman and Egyptian amulets. Bonner surveys numerous amulets representing serpents, many of which were inscribed with the name Chnoubis, referring to a zoomorphic god with the body of a human and the head of a serpent or the body of a serpent with a lion’s head radiating rays of sunlight. Similarly, the Mithraic demiurge SaturnAion-Aharimanus was depicted as leontocephalic (a human with the head of a lion); a henotheistic god encircled by a serpent, it was similarly popular in the realm of magical images.64 The same divinity, with a serpent’s body and a lion’s 62 Genesis 1:27–30; Genesis 2:7–25. 63 “Masechet, Baba Batra,” in Babylonian Talmud, trans. into. notes. glossary. and indices. I. Epstein (London: Soncino Press, 1938): 73.1, “Eruvin”: 100.2, “Nida”: 24.2, “Vaaian Tehilim”: 91.5; “Alphabet of Ben Sira,” in Encyclopedia Judaica, Joseph Dan: 23a–f: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/alphabet-of-bensira. Walter Krebs, “Lilith: Adams erste Frau,” Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte, 27.2 (1975), pp. 141–152; Hurwitz, Lilith, the First Eve, pp. 119–135; Ohad I. Ezrachi, Who Is Afraid of Lilith? (Ben-Shemen: Modan, 2005), pp. 30–36 (in Hebrew). 64 Eugen Peterson, Eis theos: epigraphische, formgeschichtliche und religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1926); Campbell Bonner, Studies in Magical Amulets: Chiefly Graeco-Egyptian (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1950), pp. 175–176; A. D. Nock, Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo (London: Oxford University Press, 1961); Crystal. J. Adde, “Monotheism, Henotheism and Polytheism in Porphyry’s Philosophy from Oracles,” in Monotheism between Pagans and Christians in Late Antiquity, eds. Stephen Mitchell and Peter

Eve and Lilith — Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dr agon 

head, was held to be highly powerful, beneficial, and protective. Vilozny contends that representations of serpents on incantation bowls in the Near East were meant as a form of protection from the demonic Lilith and her ilk. The serpent in these images was meant to represent the demon – the powerful being that protected against the evil deeds of malevolent demons, while also representing the evil demon itself encased in the serpent’s body as if in an unbreakable cage. The repetition of the serpent’s image on magical amulets perpetuates the Greco-Hellenistic images of the agathos daimon, which was adapted to offer various forms of protection.65 Although Isis is often represented as an aguiped, Bonner seems puzzled by unconventional amulets that depict an anguiped with a female torso (rather than the upper body of a lion). These odd figures may have served as the origin for representations on incantation bowls of a Lilith-like demon, whose body is fused with a serpent, or of the Gnostic Sophia. Such representations, as I maintain, are related to the motif of the woman and the dragon, and share notable similarities with the Medusa amulets that were highly popular from the Hellenistic period onward.66 Several Medusa amulets from Corinth, dated to the second–third centuries CE, include the inscription “charm for the womb.” However, most of the objects in this group, identified as Υστέρα (hystera, or womb) charms, have the following formula: “Υστέρα μελάνη μελανομένη ώς ὂφις είλύεσαι καί ίς δράκον συρίζησε καί λέων βρυχᾶσι καί ώς ἀρνίον κοιμοῦ” (Womb, black, blackening, as a snake you coil and as a serpent you hiss and as a lion you roar, and as a lamb, lie down!).67 The main image featured in this amulet group is of serpents emerging like rays of light from a head. This image, which resembles or represents the head of Medusa, is evident, for example, in the silver Hystera ring amulet dated to the sixth–eighth century CE and now in the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas (fig. 46). As noted, images of Medusa were popular on magical fertility amulets starting in the Classical Greek and Hellenistic period. Medusa charms, which lingered during the entire Byzantine period, are proof of the close ties between fertility rituals and magical images. Both Moses Gaster and Alphonse A. Barb’s analyses point to a long and stable tradition concerning a she-demon that abducts children, based on the figures of Lilitu and Lamashtu and on a long line of female monsters combined with serpents. Apotropaic images centered Van Nuffelen (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), XII, p. 152; Henk S. Versnel, Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion (Leiden: Brill, 2015), I, p. 35. 65 Bonner, Studies in Magical Amulets; Howard M. Jackson, The Lion Becomes Man: The Gnostic Leontomorphic Creator and the Platonic Tradition (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1985); Jackson, “The Meaning and Function of the Leontocephaline”; Vilozny, “Figure and Image in Magic and Popular Art,” pp. 241–246. 66 Bonner, Studies in Magical Amulets, p. 161; Spier, “Medieval Byzantine Magical Amulets,” pp. 25–62; Vilozny, “Figure and Image in Magic and Popular Art,” pp. 246–249. 67 Spier, “Medieval Byzantine Magical Amulets,” pp. 25–31; Vilozny, Lilith’s Hair and Ashmodai’s Horns, p. 149.

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Figure 46 – Medusa Hystera ring amulet, Mediterranean, sixth–eighth centuries CE, silver, Menil Collection, Houston, Texas (490.824) © Paul Hester, Menil Collection, Houston.

on female-dragon figures remained well established and recognizable throughout the Middle Ages. Around the Mediterranean, the she-demon took many names and forms: Lamia, Antaura, Alabasdria, Abyzou, Obyzouth, Gylou, and Melusine.68 These apotropaic anguiped/dracontopede images were considered to have magical powers related specifically to fertility, particularly childbirth and infant mortality. It is fascinating to note that these demons, along with their names, have endured and are venerated even today, particularly in Balkan cultures.69 Identifying the 68 Frederick C. Conybeare, ed., Testament of Solomon (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2007): 13.973f; “Peri daimonon,” in Orationes forenses et acta, eds. Michael Psellos and George T. Dennis (Leipzig: Teubner, 1994): Gr. 2316, fols. 432r–433r; Jean D’Arras, Melusine, or, The Noble History of Lusignan (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012). 69 Moses Gaster, “Two Thousand Years of a Charm against the Child-Stealing Witch,” Folklore, 11.2 (1900), pp. 129–162; Alphonse A. Barb, “Antaura: The Mermaid and the Devil’s Grandmother; A Lecture,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 29 (1966), pp. 1–23; Suzanne Lewis, “The Iconography of the Coptic Horseman in Byzantine Egypt,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, 10 (1973), pp. 27–63, particularly pp. 50–51; Monique Halm-Tisserant, “Le Gorgoneion, embléme d’Athéna: Introduction du motif sur le bouclier et l’égide,” Revue archéologique (1986), pp. 245–278; Richard P. H. Greenfield, “Saint Sismnios, the Archangel Michael and the Female Demon Gylou: The Typology of the Greek Literary Stories,” Byzantina, 15 (1989), pp. 83–141; Hurwitz, Lilith, the First Eve, pp. 132–135; Sax, The Serpent and the Swan, pp. 84–88, 238–245; Mary M. Fulgum, “Coins Used as Amulets in Late Antiquity,” in Between Magic

Eve and Lilith — Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dr agon 

consistent presence of fertility demons in the iconography of the Eden myth, which revolves around issues of fertility, sexuality and mortality, significantly expands the meaning thus far granted to these images. The most popular scenario portrayed in images of Lilith and her kind, sometimes on the obverse of the hystera amulets, is “the holy rider” – usually identified as King Solomon or one of a number of saints – who vanquishes a she-demon (fig. 47). I suggest that the origin of this iconography was the image of an equestrian figure trampling an enemy, at times a dragon, as seen, for example, on a Hellenistic stele from the third–first century BCE in the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki. An investigation of a much larger set of Greek steles dated to the third–first century BCE, which represent equestrian heroes, depict an equestrian trampling a serpent, usually shows the equestrian figure before an altar, which is crowned by a tree encircled by a dragon. One such example is the third–first century BCE niche stele now in the Mustafakemalpaşa Museum in Miletopolis, Turkey, which also includes a priestess with a phiale performing a ritual of worship. This iconography, as it persisted through late antiquity, was probably transformed into images of an equestrian trampling a dragon enemy. It is evident in the Medal of Constance II from the mid-fourth century BCE (fig. 48), which alludes to the more common image of the emperor as debellator hostium (confronting the enemy), which Eusebius documented as displayed on the facade of the palace of Constantine the Great (Gaius Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus, 272–337 CE) in Constantinople. By late antiquity, Eusebius’s interpretation of this motif had been Christianized, portraying the dragon as the symbolic enemy of the emperor. Roman and Egyptian images, such as the fourth century CE Coptic terracotta latticework of Horus trampling Seth, now in the Louvre Museum, Paris, corroborate this interpretation. Horus, riding a horse, is seen trampling Seth in the guise of a crocodile in the calcatio colli pose, adding a spire that presages the defeat of Seth. This motif was charged with a unified and coherent symbolic meaning as propaganda for the good ruler, who subdues chaos by vanquishing humanity’s adversary, and was similarly adopted in images of warrior saints vanquishing God’s adversary. The most famous of these is Saint George, though in the Early Byzantine era, the most common images of dragon-slayer saints were those of Theodore and Sisinnios.70 and Religion: Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and Society, eds. Sulochana R. Asirvatham, Corinne Ondine Pache and John Watrous (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001), pp. 139–148, particularly p. 142; Resnick and Kitchell, “The Sweepings of Lamia,” in Religion, Gender, and Culture, ed. Cuffel and Britt, pp. 77–95, which establishes the connection between Lamia and Lilith; John C. Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in Survivals (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Vos and Otten, Demons and the Devil in Ancient and Medieval Christianity. 70 Eusebius, Life of Constantine, trans. intro. and comm. Averil Cameron and Stuart G. Hal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999): 3:3:1–3. “Heros Equitans,” in Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae (LIMC)

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Figure 47 – Holy Rider amulet, Byzantine, sixth–seventh centuries, bronze, Dumbarton Oaks Museum, Washington, DC (BZ. 1950.15) © Dumbarton Oaks Museum.

Figure 48 – Equestrian Trampling a Dragon, Medal of Constance II, mid-fourth century, gold, Cabinet of Medals, National Library of France, Paris (No. 462, Vitr. XVIII) © BNF.

The Woman and the Dr agon in Premodern Art

Eve and Lilith — Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dr agon 

The paradigmatic shift from the figure of a dragon to that of a woman in the iconographic motif of the holy rider underscores the association between the symbolic meanings and functions of these two figures. In a similar manner, the image of Lilith and her allies was conceptually equivalent to that of the dragon, and was sometimes even visually fused with it, so that their meanings exerted a mutual influence on one another. On several amulets featuring a holy rider, the equestrian figure is identified by the inscription as Solomon. In the Holy Rider Medallion pendant amulet dated to the fifth–sixth centuries and now in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, also known as the Solomon Seal, Solomon is shown trampling a female figure. Christianity adopted this same formula, as seen, for example, in a sixth–seventh century bronze amulet in the Dumbarton Oaks Museum, Washington, DC (fig. 47) depicting two saints, one of which is an equestrian figure. This iconography is linked to the apocryphal story Testament of Solomon from the third–fourth centuries CE. Solomon is presented as an archetypal exorcist catching the demon Obyzouth, who, like Lilith, is a menace to childbirth and infants. The female figure is explicitly identified as Lilith in later Jewish texts, while the male figure changes from Solomon to Elijah in a similar story. As Siegmund Hurwitz and Moses Gater have argued, these different female demons, whose names have etymological meanings such as “the strangler” or “the night owl,” are all synonymous with Lilith.71 (Zurich: Artemis, 1981–1999), VI/1, p. 1043, VI/2, p. 694. Henry H. Cohen, Description historique des monnaies frappées sous l’Empire romain communément appelées médailles impériales (Paris: Rollin et Feuardent, 1892), VII, p. 443; Barb, “Antaura,” p. 6; Lewis, “The Iconography of the Coptic Horseman,” p. 55; Spier, “Medieval Byzantine Magical Amulets,” pp. 27, 33–51; Nora Dimitrova, “Inscriptions and Iconography in the Monuments of the Thracian Rider,” Hesperia: Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 71.2 (April–June 2002), pp. 209–229; Vayos Liapis, “The Thracian Cult of Rhesus and the Heros Equitans,” Kernos: Revue internationale et pluridisciplinaire de religion grecque antique, 24 (2011), pp. 95–104. On equestrian saints, see Christopher Walter, “The Thracian Horseman: Ancestor of the Warrior Saint?,” Byzantinische Forschungen, 14 (1989), pp. 659–673; Christopher Walter, “The Intaglio of Solomon in the Benaki Museum and the Origins of the Iconography of Warrior Saints,” Deltion tes christianikes archailogikes hetaireias, 15 (1989), pp. 35–42; James Russell, “The Archaeological Context of Magic in the Early Byzantine Period,” in Byzantine Magic, ed. Henry Maguire (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), pp. 35–50; Nicole Thierry, “Aux limites du sacré et du magique: Un programme d’entrée d’une église en Cappadoce,” Res orientales, 12 (1999), pp. 233–247; Oya Pancaroğlu, “The Itinerant Dragon-Slayer: Forging Paths of Image and Identity in Medieval Anatolia,” Gesta, 43.2 (2004), pp. 151–164, particularly pp. 152–153; Jeffrey Spier, “Middle Byzantine (10th–13th Century AD) Stamp Seals,” in Through a Glass Brightly: Studies in Byzantine and Medieval Art and Archaeology Presented to David Buckton, ed. Chris Entwistle (Oxford, UK: Oxbow, 2016), pp. 114–126; John Nesbitt, “Apotropaic Devices on Byzantine Lead Seals and Tokens,” in Through a Glass Brightly, ed. Entwistle, pp. 107–113. For more information about the apocryphal text of the Testament of Solomon, see Peter Busch, Das Testament salomos: Die älteste christliche Dämonologie, kommentiert und in deutscher Erstübersetzung (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2006). 71 Conybeare, Testament of Solomon: 13.973; James A. Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur, Publications of the Babylonian Section 3 (Philadelphia: University Museum, 1913), pp. 102–164, pl.

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This persistent formula proves that childbirth and fertility, which were related to the functions of Medusa and Medea as part of the woman and the dragon motif, were the concerns targeted by these images. In a sixth–seventh century fresco of Saint Sisinnios from Chapel XVII in the Monastery of Saint Apollo at Bawit, in Egypt, the saint crushes the she-demon Alabasdria under his horse’s hooves and stabs her with a spear, as in the holy rider formula. This main motif is surrounded by different demonic signs, such as the scorpion, the evil eye flanked by a serpent, and an anguiped female figure identified in a Coptic inscription as Alabasdria’s daughter, who has similar demonic functions. In these representations, the female demon has an exposed upper body to emphasize her femininity, while her lower part is striped. In some examples, such as a bronze amulet (f ig. 47), it is more obvious that the lower part of the female figure is reptilian. Textual evidence also links she-demons to snake hybrids. Hurwitz discusses folk tales of both Jewish and Christian origin that describe Lilith in the shape of a snake, dragon, or reptile, sneaking into a house at night. In the Book of Zohar, Lilith, the wife of Samael, is also described as a serpent, while, as noted, being affiliated with other animals – particularly nocturnal predatory birds. These associations further underscore the visual and conceptual link between she-demons related to childbirth rituals, the Eden myth, and the anguiped form.72 The hybrid, sometimes anguiform, female demon who menaces children, referred to in the current discussion as “Lilith,” was associated with different names in different textual sources. However, visual similarities leave no doubt that the consolidated folk motif of a woman fused with a dragon was charged with powerful associations related to fertility, pregnancy, childbirth, and infancy, as well as to the fecundity and XXI, 20; Gaster, “Two Thousand Years of a Charm against the Child-Stealing Witch,” pp. 129–162; Bonner, Studies in Magical Amulets, pp. 208–221; Gershom G. Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism and Talmudic Tradition: Based on the Israel Goldstein Lectures, Delivered at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1960), pp. 65–74; Armand Delatte and Philippe Derchain, Les intailles magiques gréco-égyptiennes (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1964), p. 261, nn. 369–377; Lewis, “The Iconography of the Coptic Horseman,” pp. 50–51; Hurwitz, Lilith, the First Eve, pp. 115–139; Rosenzweig, Lilith, a Demon with a Borderline Personality Disorder ,pp. 180–184, makes a specific reference to incantation-bowl no. 42 of Montgomery, 188, n. 25; Vicky A. Foskolou, “The Magic of the Written Word: The Evidence of Inscriptions on Byzantine Magical Amulets,” Deltion of the Christian Archaeological Society, 35 (2014), pp. 329–348, p. 338, with the inscription on a glass medallion reading as follows: “Σφραγὶς Σολοµόνος ἔχει τὴν βασκανία” (the Seal of Solomon restrains the evil eye). 72 “Stre Torah,” in Zohar, trans. and comm. Nathan Wolski, Daniel C. Matt and Joel Hecker (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004–2017): 1:148a. Barb, “Antaura,” p. 7, which refers to the Coptic inscription but does not add a reference or explanation; Fritz Pradel, ed., Griechische und süditalienische Gebete (Giessen: Töpelmann, 1907), p. 23; Paul Perdrizet, Negotium perambulans in tenebris (Strasbourg: Istra, 1922), pp. 7, 12–14, 26–27; Patai, “Lilith,” p. 300; Sholem Gershom, “Lilith,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, eds. Cecil Roth and Geoffrey Wigoder (Jerusalem: Encyclopaedia Judaica; New York: MacMillan, 1971–1972), II, pp. 245–250; Lewis, “The Iconography of the Coptic Horseman,” p. 51; Hurwitz, Lilith, the First Eve, p. 133.

Eve and Lilith — Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dr agon 

well-being of the land. The choice to refer to anguiped images as Lilith alludes to her theological association with the biblical myth of creation and Original Sin.73Another figure that underscores Lilith’s connection to dragons is Samael, her chosen spouse and the king of demons, who is himself sometimes described as a dragon.74 In contrast to Adam and Eve, the parents of humankind, Samael and Lilith are the parents of demons. The third pair is Christ and Mary, commonly defined as the inversion of Adam and Eve, and as the absolute opposite of the demons and the diabolic realm. Consequently, the appearance of Lilith in the Eden scene and under the feet of the Virgin Mary, as seen in the stature and relief in the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris (fig. 45), shows Mary as not only overcoming Original Sin but also as protecting childbirth and infants and overpowering demons. These images reflect the above-mentioned paradigm of “similia similibus applaudunt,” presenting the very entity that is to be defeated and thus combining elements of the dragon-slayer motif with apotropaic principles, as is seen in the image depicting Mary alongside a dragon (fig. 41). The identification of the anguiped figure in representations of the Eden myth as Lilith is further supported by an examination of a wooden box in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, dated to the early fifteenth century (fig. 49). The three female figures appearing on this object are depicted in a triangle. The Tree of Knowledge becomes the family tree of Mary, stressing her role as the pillar of the world, while the human Eve and the anguiped Lilith flank the tree on either side. This image can thus be understood not only as an object of worship, but also as a magical artifact that combines holy and apotropaic functions. The Madonna’s artistic representation thus brings together Christian theology together with folk traditions, suggesting that Mary overturns Eve’s primeval sin and overpowers Lilith.75 Lilith’s image also offers a solution to problems identified by other investigations of the female-headed serpent. The crown on the dracontopede, discussed by Flores, is easy to understand when the figure is identified as the queen of demons. Moreover, Gussenhoven’s identification of two dracontopede types – an older married type and a younger loose-haired type – is consistent with thirteenth-century texts that split Lilith into younger and older incarnations.76 73 Barb’s article also includes rare amulets that present this demon as the cause of migraine; see Barb, “Antaura,” pp. 2–3. 74 Patai, “Lilith,” pp. 307–308. For some sources that identify the matchmaker of Lilith and Samael as Taniniver, the Blind Dragon, see “Emek HaMelech,” in Mystic Tales from the Emek HaMelech, Naftali Hertz, comm. R. DovBer Pinson (Brooklyn, NY: Salomon Foundation and IYYUN Center, 2015): 84c; Bezalel B. Solomon of Kobrin, “Amud ha’Shiv’ah,” in, Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century, eds. Isadore Twersky and Bernard Septimus (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987): 51c–d. 75 Hoffeld, “Adam’s Two Wives,” p. 436. 76 Isaac Hacohen, Tarbiz (Jerusalem: Hebrew University and Institute of Jewish Studies, 1930–): 5.194 (in Hebrew). Patai, “Lilith,” pp. 308–312. In the Jewish myth, the two are sometimes rivals.

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Figure 49 – Mary and Child Seated on a Throne with Eve and Lilith Underneath, early fifteenth century, wooden box, The Cloisters Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (No. 55. I 6.2) © The Cloisters Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum.

Eve and Lilith — Christianizing the Great Goddess and the Dr agon 

Contrary to Bonnell’s assertion that the dracontopede image derives from mystery plays, it appears that this image is a later incarnation of the anguiped motif, which never disappeared and in fact continued to flourish in popular visual culture and folk images, particularly those pertaining to childbirth rituals and infant protection. Relating the anguiped image to the Eden serpent seems inevitable in light of the prominence of fertility as a theme in the myth of the first parents, and its evolving connection to the queen of demons and to childbirth protection rituals. The Eden scenario with the dracontopede image under the feet of the Madonna, the primary protector of fertility, further enhanced this concern with womanhood, fertility, and mortality. These themes are even more pronounced when the nude Eve and the serpent/dracontopede are placed below the Madonna and her child (figs. 42, 45, 49). As this pairing reveals, although Lilith is the prototype of “the bad woman,” this bias did not exempt Eve. Extensive documentation, from early Christianity to the fifteenth century, associates Eve herself with witchcraft and witches, and blames her disobedience and easily seduced nature for the misery of humanity, including the pains of childbirth, mortality and Original Sin.77 The image of Lilith may also be related to representations of the mythical creature Shahmaran, still popular today in Eastern Turkey, Anatolia, and India, as can be seen for example in a relief from Ani Ruins dated to the thirteenth century, now in the Kars Museum, Turkey. In various folk traditions, Shahmaran has a female torso, while her lower half is a dragon’s body. Her story appears in One Thousand and One Nights (Yeraltı Sultanı Yemliha’nın Öyküsü), a collection of stories assembled starting in the eighth century. The name Shahmaran combines two words – “Shah,” a title of Eastern royalty, and “maran,” snakes – and thus means “snake queen.” Even today, Shahmaran is considered to be wise and protective, particularly of health and fertility, pointing to the continuous apotropaic significance of the motif of the woman and the dragon in Eastern traditions.78 77 Given the extensive scope of studies on this subject, I refer here only to particular studies that link Eve’s mythical f igure with womanhood or witches; see Simone De Beauvoir, The Second Sex, ed. and trans. Howard M. Parshley (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), pp. 78–80; Christina Larner, Enemies of God: The Witch-Hunt in Scotland, fore. Norman Cohn (London: Chatto and Windus, 1981), p. 92; Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), p. 114; Levison, “The Exoneration and Denigration of Eve”; Meiser, “Sünde, Buβe und Gnade in dem Leben Adams und Evas,” in Literature on Adam and Eve: Collected Essays, eds. Gary Anderson, Michael Stone and Johannes Tromp (Leiden: Brill, 2000), pp. 297–313; Daphna V. Arbel, Forming Femininity in Antiquity: Eve, Gender, and Ideologies in the Greek Life of Adam and Eve (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); Annette Y. Reed, “Gendering Heavenly Secrets?,” in Daughters of Hecate, Stratton, pp, 108–151. 78 I thank Linda Bar-On for calling my attention to this image. “Night 482: The Sultan of the Underground,” in The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night: A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, trans. and anno. Richard F. Burton (Adelaide: University of Adelaide, 2003): 133. Diane Edgecomb, A Fire in My Heart: Kurdish Tales, contr. Mohammed M. A. Ahmed and Çeto Ozel, illus.

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To conclude, this chapter centered on the woman and dragon motif as it appears in the biblical story of the Garden of Eden and in the Judeo-Christian visual tradition. It explored the persistence of this motif in folk traditions and rituals throughout Western Europe, from the early Christian to the late medieval period, and the ways in which the holy aspects of this motif were simultaneously preserved and denigrated. As this discussion has shown, the binary nature of this motif combines meanings pertaining to holiness and protection, alongside ones associated with maliciousness and harmfulness, while attending to the liminal threshold between life and death. The following chapter continues to probe the evolution of this motif as it came to be encapsulated in the iconography of St. Margaret, from the early medieval period to the early Renaissance.

Rebekah Murphy (Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2008), pp. 107–112; Hiclâl Demir and Hafize Şahnn, “Reinterpreting the Story ‘Shahmaran’s Legs’ by Murathsn Mungan with Reference to Values Education,” Electronic Turkish Studies, 10.15 (2015), pp. 289–298.

6.

Saint Margaret – Taming the Dragon Abstract: This chapter investigates the function of Saint Margaret’s visual imagery in relation to her written legenda, with a focus on its importance in childbirth rituals during the late medieval and early modern periods. Illuminating the discrepancy between visual and textual descriptions of the saint’s encounter with a dragon, the discussion presents the saint’s image as a continuation of this millennia-old motif of the woman and the dragon, and contends that images of Saint Margaret played a similar role to images of fertility demons. I further suggest that depicting the saint as collaborating with and taming the dragon offered guidance to women in surmounting the pains of labor, and was aimed at providing them with a sense of empowerment and control during childbirth. Keywords: Saint Margaret, Saint Marina, Saint George, hagiography, childbirth, Great Goddess.

The previous chapters traced the evolution of representations featuring women and dragons from antiquity to the early medieval period, while probing the unique characteristics of this motif as distinct from that of the male dragon slayer. The current chapter centers on the most popular visual iconography of Saint Margaret, which presents her encounter with the dragon, while relating it to her hagiography and her cultic role in Western Europe from the late medieval to the early modern period. As I will argue, an understanding of the connection between the images of the saint’s encounter with the dragon and the motif of the woman and the dragon is essential to the elucidation of her role as a patron of pregnant women and newborns, and of the function of both her written legend and her visual representations in childbirth rituals. This saint’s encounter with the dragon is viewed as a continuation of the motif representing the woman and the dragon in a Christian context, focusing on the visual iconography of Saint Margaret. As I will demonstrate, a comprehensive understanding of the iconography of Saint Margaret arises not only through its comparison with images of male dragonslayers, but also through a comparative study of the differences between written accounts of Margaret’s life and her visual depictions. By exposing the inconsistencies

Khalifa-Gueta, S., The Woman and the Dragon in Premodern Art. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023. doi 10.5117/9789463723572_ch06

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between her written hagiography, or legenda, and her visual representation, and revealing the dissonance between word and image, the richness and complexity of her iconography can be fully appreciated, as can powerful role of visual imagery in the saint’s cult.1 In his legenda of Saint Margaret, Jacobus de Voragine, the author of the Legenda Aurea (Golden Legend), states that he does not believe the veracity of the story stating that the female saint had been inside the dragon.2 As I will demonstrate in the following analysis, this written statement stands in contrast to the proliferation throughout Europe of visual images representing Saint Margaret inside the dragon. Saint Margaret appealed to women because of her role as patron saint of childbirth and protector of infants, and her iconography was merged with those aspects. As I will argue, the inconsistencies evident when comparing the written and visual accounts of her life are rooted in the reliance on ancient visual images of women and dragons. This motif, I will demonstrate, endured in pagan folk beliefs and rituals, and was given expression through the merging of images prevalent in Christianity with visual concepts formulated in antiquity, in particular ones relating to anguiped images of fertility demons such as Lilith. Saint Margaret’s hagiography migrated to Europe from Eastern Byzantium, where she was called Saint Marina and appeared as early as the fifth century. Although the hagiographies of Marina and Margaret are almost identical, their visual images set them apart: artistic representations highlight disparate narrative moments, evincing different cultural emphases and dissonances that call for further explanation. Another major task is to compare visual representations of Saint Margaret’s encounter with the dragon to the encounter between dragons and male protagonists, particularly Saint George. As the following discussion will reveal, in most cases Saint Margaret is not, in fact, a dragon-slayer. Indeed, an understanding of the connection between the saint’s images and the motif of the woman and the dragon is essential to an understanding of her patronage role, and in particular the function of her legend and images in childbirth rituals. 1 For general information about Saint Margaret, see Frederic Spencer, “The Legend of Saint Margaret,” Modern Language Notes, 4.7 (November 1889), pp. 197–201; Frances M. Mack, Seinte Marherete: De meiden ant martyr (London: H. Milford; Oxford University Press for the Early English Text Society, 1933); George Kaftal, Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting (Florence: Sansoni 1952), pp. 649–658; Louis Rèau, Iconographie de l’art chrètien (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1955–1959), III/2, pp. 877–882; Sauget, “Marina (Margherita),” in Bibliotheca sanctorum (Rome: Istituto Giovanni XXIII della Pontificia Università Lateranense, 1961–1970), VIII, pp. 1150–1160; Engelbert Kirschbaum, Günter Bandmann and Wolfgang Braunfels, Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie (Rome: Herder, 1968–1976), pp. 494–500; Peter Murray and Linda Murray, The Oxford Companion to Christian Art and Architecture (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 304–305. 2 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. William Granger Ryan, intro. Eamon Duffy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012): pt. 93.368–370.

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Juliana Dresvina begins her monumental investigation of Saint Margaret, A Maid with a Dragon: The Cult of Saint Margaret of Antioch in Medieval England, with a rather surprising statement concerning the stability of the legend throughout the vast geographic area and lengthy timeframe that define her study. Dresvina attributes this narrative stability to its holy status,3 yet this argument is puzzling given the changes, adjustments, alterations and elaborations introduced into many other holy narratives in order to adapt them to changing social and cultural environments. This is especially evident in the story of Mary, the mother of Jesus, whose figure is associated with an entire corpus of apocryphal stories. One such example is the Story of the Birth of Saint Mary, Mother of God from the Gospel of James, of which we find no mention in the New Testament or during the first centuries of Christianity. 4 As I wish to argue, the image of Saint Margaret allowed for the incorporation into the official Christian belief system of the ancient and deep-rooted folk imagery traced earlier in this book, forming a bridge between Christian theology and the ancient traditions embedded in folk images and the motif of the woman and the dragon. It is this role of bridging the chasm between different cultural worlds that endowed the iconography of Saint Margaret with such consistency in both literary and visual references. Indeed, the similarities between Saint Margaret’s iconographic types are greater than the differences between them, as is the remarkable stability of these traditions from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century.

The legenda As noted, Saint Margaret’s legenda remained relatively consistent over the centuries and across a large geographic area, so that a brief outline of the main events described in her Life will suffice. The above-mentioned Legenda Aurea, the version of Saint Margaret’s story written by the Dominican Friar Jacobus de Voragine ca. 1260, proved to be the most popular and influential account of her life in Europe, particularly in Italy.5 Thus, although her exploits were narrated by various authors, the current discussion will focus on examples from the literary tradition of Italy. 3 Juliana Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon: The Cult of Saint Margaret of Antioch in Medieval England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 7. 4 P. Murray and L. Murray, The Oxford Companion to Christian Art and Architecture, pp. 882–884; Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Scriptures: Books That Did Not Make It into the New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 63–72; Jaroslav Pelikan, David Flusser and Justin Lang, Mary: Images of the Mother of Jesus in Jewish and Christian Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005). 5 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: 93.368–370. For more information about the Legenda Aurea, see Sherry L. Reames, The Legenda Aurea: A Reexamination of Its Paradoxical History (Madison:

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Jacobus de Voragine begins with the etymology of Margaret’s name, which means “pearl” in ancient Greek. He goes on to recount how Margaret, a girl born into a noble pagan family in Antioch, is sent to live with a Christian wet nurse who baptizes her in secret. When her father finds out about her conversion, he banishes her. One day, while Margaret, now grown, is shepherding her nurse’s flock, a pagan prefect named Olibrius expresses his desire to marry her or to make her his concubine. Jacobus de Voragine’ unique addition of the dialogue between the maiden and Olibrius, and their debate concerning Christ, emphasizes Olibrius’s opposition to Christianity, and lays the groundwork for the comparison between Margaret’s life and that of Jesus. Margaret declines Olibrius’ offer, proclaiming her wish to protect her virginity and alluding to her Christian faith. Intent on doing away with her “Christian madness,” Olibrius condemns her to torture in the arena, which escalates from verbal abuse to torment by means of rods and iron hooks. Jacobus de Voragine was the first to assert that she was tied to a rock, a detail alluding to Andromeda. Margaret’s body is ripped apart by these various forms of torture, and her bleeding is likened to a spring. The hideous sight is too much for Olibrius to bear, and so he has her incarcerated. In prison, she prays to God to see her enemy, and a gigantic dragon appears before her. As she makes the sign of the cross, the dragon vanishes. At this point, Jacobus de Voragine feels compelled to inform his readers of another variation on this event, in which Margaret was devoured by the dragon. Nevertheless, he hastens to critique this alternate version of the tale: “What is said here, however, about the beast swallowing the maiden and bursting asunder is considered apocryphal and not to be taken seriously.” Why, then, does he nevertheless feel constrained to mention this version? The answer to this question is likely that this scene represented Margaret’s most popular visual iconography. Although this scenario had several aspects that contradicted the opinions of learned theologians, it was nonetheless acceptable to, and highly regarded by, artists and their audiences. Returning to the story: after the dragon vanishes, a black demon appears, and Margaret overpowers him as well. While her leg is crushing his neck, he tells her the story of the demonology of the world, and particularly the story of Solomon. In some variations, she smashes him with a hammer; in Jacobus de Voragine’s variation, she exorcises him. The next day, her torture continues with torches and boiling water. This event precipitates the conversion to Christianity of the five University of Wisconsin Press, 1985); Barbara Fleith, “Le classement des quelque 1000 manuscrits de la Legenda aurea latine en vue de l’éstablissement d’une histoire de la tradition,” in Legenda Aurea: Sept siècles de diffusion, ed. Brenda Dunn-Lardeau (Montreal: Bellarmin; Paris: J. Vrin, 1986), pp. 19–24; Hilary Maddocks, “Pictures for Aristocrats: The Manuscripts of the Légende dorée,” in Medieval Texts and Images: Studies of Manuscripts from the Middle Ages, eds. Margaret M. Manion and Bernard James Muir (Chur: Harwood Academic Publishers; Philadelphia: Sydney and Craftsman House, 1991), II, 1–24.

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thousand people in the crowd, and Margaret is sentenced to death. In her pre-death prayer, she calls upon women in labor to pray for her assistance in order to ensure a positive outcome and the health of the newborn. She is then beheaded, and in most variations of the story, her head is carried to Heaven by angels. One cannot overemphasize the centrality and importance of Saint Margaret in medieval and early modern Europe. Her popularity soared in the ninth century to the point where she was considered as one of the quattordici santi ausiliatori – the fourteen most important protective saints of the Catholic Church – and she was one of the most popular female saints, along with Saint Catherine and Mary Magdalene.6 Hundreds of hagiographies of Saint Margaret were written across Europe, from Greece and Malta to Italy, Germany, France, the Netherlands, England, and Scotland. This vast geographic area is even greater if one includes Saint Margaret’s progenitor, Saint Marina, revered in Greece Orthodox churches in Asia Minor, Antioch, and even further east. Although her martyrdom is dated to the end of the third century or the beginning of the fourth century, the first surviving account of this saint’s story was documented by Radulph of Rivo. While in Rome in 1403, Radulph wrote in his Libre de Canonum Observantia that Saint Margaret was mentioned in fifth-century apocryphal literature of the canon of Pope Gelasius. The first extant hagiographies are from the eighth and ninth centuries, yet their fully rounded narratives provide evidence that they were based on earlier variations.7 The ninth-century Greek variations of the Life of Saint Marina/Margaret uniquely allude to antiquity, thus supporting the argument made in this chapter. In the Usener variation, which was said to have been copied by Saint Methodius from an earlier variation during his stay in Rome between 815 and 820, the conversation between Saint Marina and the demon goes back to Zeus. During the black demon’s monologue on demonology in this variation, he explains that the fallen Satan took one of Zeus’s daughters for a wife, and together they produced eggs that hatched into demons. Already at this early stage, several of the earlier Greek variations question that the saint was swallowed by the dragon. The variation from the Marciana codex 6 Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon, p. 3. 7 Bolland, Acta sanctorum (Antwerp and Brussels: s.n., 1643), V, p. 31; Marvin C. Ross and Glanville Downey, “A Reliquary of St. Marina,” Byzantinoslavica, 23 (1962), pp, 42–44; Mary Clayton and Hugh Magennis, The Old English Lives of St. Margaret (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 6; Elizabeth A. Petroff, Body and Soul: Essays on Medieval Women and Mysticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 98; Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?: Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), p. 310; “Reliquary of the Hand of Saint Marina,” Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index (University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City): http://inpress.lib.uiowa.edu/feminae/DetailsPage.aspx?Feminae_ID=32224; Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon, pp. 6–14.

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indicates that, while in the belly of the dragon, Marina prayed to the prophet Jonah. This anecdote, conceptually as well as visually, connects the image of Marina to that of Jonah being swallowed by the big fish – a Ketos dragon (fig. 2). The motif of being swallowed by a dragon was previously discussed in connection with Jason and Hercules as well. Thus, from an early stage, the textual evidence suggests that the narrative of Margaret/Marina being swallowed by the dragon has multiple origins. The Metaphrastes variation eliminates the dragon and the demon altogether, with the author clearly stating his wish to correct a narrative full of fables.8 Several early Latin sources followed the Greek Metaphrastes tradition in rejecting the saint’s encounter with the dragon and the demon; the Rebdorf Passion, for instance, reduces it to a mere vision (phantasma).9 Taken together, these variations reveal both the residual pagan elements in this story indicating multiple origins, as well as the early attempts to eradicate the dragon and demon figures by Christian writers. Thus, despite such early resistance to this account, the theme of the saint being swallowed by the dragon is particularly associated with Christ entering hell – since hell’s gates were symbolized as a dragon’s jaws (fig. 4).10 The first Latin version of this tradition (Turin BN.D.V.3) dates to the end of the eighth century. The Latin variations are mostly translations of early Greek legends, such as the Turin variation, which followed Usener’s tale of the daughter of Zeus, and there are many Latin variations in the Vatican in Rome (Turin, BD D.V.3; BHL 5303; BHL 5305; BHL 5308). The Rebdorf variation is ascribed to Peter – the subdeacon of Naples, and there is at least one known vernacular variation of the work.11 Latin variations of the Life of the saint sometimes refer to her as Marina and at other times as Margarita. By the late eighth century, both names are included in liturgical manuscripts, such as the Martyrologium of Hrabanus Maurus, probably written in 840–854, which dedicates 8 Surius Laurentius, Bewerte Historien der lieben heiligen Gottes (Munich: Berg, 1578), IV, fols. 182v–183r; Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon, pp. 14–15. 9 Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon, pp. 17–19. 10 Jocelyn G. Price, “The Virgin and the Dragon: The Demonology of Seinte Margarete,” Leeds Studies in English, n.s., 16 (1985), pp. 349–357; Jean-Pierre Albert, “La lègende de sainte Marguerite: un mythe maïeutique?,” Razo, 8 (1988), pp. 23–25; Catherine Pearce, “The Cult of St Margaret of Antioch,” Feminist Theology, 6.16 (1997), pp. 70–85, particularly p. 78; Ellen M. Ross, The Grief of God: Images of the Suffering Jesus in Late Medieval England (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 98–104; Cynthia Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart: Narrative Effect in Pictorial Lives of Saints from the Tenth through the Thirteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), pp. 59–61; Wendy R. Larson, “The Role of Patronage and Audience in the Cults of Sts. Margaret and Marina of Antioch,” in Gender and Holiness: Men, Women, and Saints in Late Medieval Europe, eds. Samantha J. E. Riches and Sarah Salih (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 26. 11 Pietro Suddiacono, Pietro Suddiacono Napoletano L’opera agiografica, ed. Edoardo D’Angelo (Florence: Sismel, 2002), LXI–LXII, pp. 239–242; Juliana Dresvina, “A Note on a Hitherto Unpublished Life of Saint Margaret of Antioch from MS Eng. Th. E. 18: Its Scribe and Its Source,” Journal of the Early Book Society (2007), pp. 213–224; Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon, pp. 16–20, Appendix 1: 6–11.

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a day to each: Margaret’s Day on the thirteenth of July, and Marina’s Day on the eighteenth of June. Ellen M. Ross, Marvin C. Ross, Glanville Downey, and Cynthia Hahn suggest that the liturgical acknowledgment of the saint was connected to the appearance of her relics. For instance, several sources indicate that the Empress Marina (Maria) brought a relic hand of Saint Marina to Constantinople, which was subsequently brought to Venice in 1213. Italian literary accounts of Saint Margaret’s legenda were widely disseminated in various locations over the centuries, while pointing to the migration of her story from the East. Some copies of the Italian Mombritius passions, for instance, reveal that the saint’s name was originally given as Marina, and was later erased and replaced by the name Margaret. This variation spread from Italy throughout Europe.12 Over time, Marina was all but forgotten in Western Europe, and Margaret remained the only name for this saint. The early Greek and Latin variations of the story, Usener, Mombritius, and Casinensis, give almost identical descriptions of the image of the dragon: hairy, bearded, at once golden and colorful, with a protruding tongue, sparkling iron teeth, pearly eyes, serpents around its neck and above its eyes, and breath made of smoke and fire. The sounds of hissing and screaming are also highlighted in the description. The dragon is usually named Rufus, a common name for the devil in the shape of a dragon, and is sometimes described as having leonine features.13 As noted, the Life of Saint Margaret was extremely popular throughout Europe, including Italy, as made evident by Cesare Foligno’s article “An Italian Version of the Legend of St Margaret: From a Brera Manuscript.” Searching for earlier influences on MS. I (Br), Foligno explores several Italian texts on Saint Margaret, including those translated from Latin, such as the Legenda di S. Margherita Vergine Martire from an Ambrosian MS (the Riccardiana Library, Florence, has at least fifteen manuscript copies of this variation). Several examples of a Lombard variation, one of which was probably copied by Wace in La vie de Sainte Marguerite, as well variations from southern Italy such as the independent variation of Monte Cassino MS 52 and the Rebdorf Passion, seem to have influenced later variations.14 12 Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon, p. 16. 13 Petroff, Body and Soul, p. 100; E. M. Ross, The Grief of God, pp. 98–101; W. Larson, “The Role of Patronage and Audience in the Cults of Sts. Margaret and Marina of Antioch,” in Gender and Holiness, eds. Riches and Salih, p. 26; Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon, pp. 178–179, 278. 14 A. M. Mauni, Vita de Santi e Sante in aggiunta al rolgrizzamento delle Vite de` Santi Padri (Florence: s.n., 1734), III, pp. 127–141; Pietro Ferrato, Leggenda di S. Margherita Vergine Martire (Venice: s.n., 1867); Ab. Antonio Ceruti, “Leggenda di S. Margherita Vergine Martire (from an Ambrosian MS),” Propugnatore, 3.2 (1870), pp. 178–191; Erasmo Percopo, Quattro poemetti sacri dei secoli XIV e XV (Bologna: G. Romagnoli, 1885), CXI, pp. 147–180; Bibliotheca hagiographica Latina (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1898–1901), II, p. 5308; Wace, La vie de Sainte Marguerite, ed., intro. and gloss. Hans-Erich Keller (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 2012); Cesare Foligno, “An Italian Version of the Legend of St Margaret: From a Brera Manuscript,” Modern Language Review, 6.1 (1911), pp. 23–67, particularly pp. 23–24, nn. 4–7; M. C. Ross and Downey, “A

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Figure 50 – Turino Vanni, Vanni Altarpiece, 1349–1438, tempera on wood panel, from the Cathedral of Montefiascone, Picture Gallery: Vatican Collection, Vatican © Copyright permission from Rex Harris.

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Italy is considered crucial to the spread of Marina/Margaret’s relics throughout Western Europe; another prominent example, in addition to the relics that came to Venice from Constantinople in 1213, are those that came to Saint Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, and were sent to the Cathedral in Montefiascone in 1145. In Italy alone do we find monumental altarpiece paintings in which Saint Margaret is the only represented saint, such as The Vanni Altarpice (f ig. 50) or the altarpiece Saint Margaret’s Life Cycle at Saint Margherita a Montici in Florence.15 Saint Margaret’s hagiographies, many with illustrations, also gained in popularity. Although her life-cycle iconography was expanded and images of her torment abounded, a single image dominates: that of the fair maiden with the dragon.

The Iconography of Saint Margaret from the Tenth to Fifteenth Century Saint Margaret with the dragon was by far the most popular image of the saint during the tenth–fifteenth centuries, giving rise to several different iconographic types. The iconography of Saint Margaret’s encounter with the dragon was given some consideration in Dresvinas’ study of her cult in England, as well as in Wendy R. Larson’s “The Role of Patronage and Audience in the Cults of Saints: Margaret and Marina of Antioch,” which addresses general aspects of her visual representation.16 Josepha Weitzmann-Fiedler’s article “Zur Illustration der Margaretenlegenda” examines two early illustrated books devoted to her legend. Also noteworthy are Leanne Gilbertson’s studies of The Vanni Altarpiece and Lois Drewer’s “Margaret of Antioch the Demon-Slayer, East and West: The Iconography of the Predella of the Boston Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine,” which defines the difference between representations of Margaret and Marina. Julia I. Miller’s “Miraculous Childbirth and the Portinari Altarpiece” analyzes the connection between childbirth in the hospital, where the altarpiece was eventually placed, and Saint Margaret’s role as the patron of childbirth. Federico Zeri’s attribution of the Saint Margaret painting in the Metropolitan Museum to the workshop of Agnolo Gaddi, and William M.

Reliquary of St Marina”; Petroff, Body and Soul, p. 97, n. 1; Cynthia Hahn, “The Voices of the Saints: Speaking Reliquaries,” Gesta, 36.1 (1997), pp. 20–31; Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart, p. 62; Clayton and Magennis, The Old English Lives of St Margaret, p. 10; Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, p. 310; “Reliquary of the Hand of Saint Marina”; Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon, pp. 13–20. Later examinations are mostly centered on English variations of Saint Margaret’s hagiographies. 15 M. C. Ross and Downey, “A Reliquary of St Marina”; Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon, pp. 14, 170. 16 W. Larson, “The Role of Patronage and Audience in the Cults of Sts. Margaret and Marina of Antioch,” in Gender and Holiness, eds. Riches and Salih, pp. 23–35; Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon, pp. 173–181.

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Figure 51 – Saint Margaret Defeating the Dragon, ca. 970, miniature Ottonian illustrated libelli MS I 189, fol. 23r, copy of Mombritius made in Fulda, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library, Hanover © Gottfred Wlhelm Leibniz Bibliothek.

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Milliken’s “‘Saint Margaret’ by Antonello Gagini” also present pertinent discussions of her visual representations.17 The current discussion is based on an examination of more than eighty images of Saint Margaret from Western Europe, with an emphasis on Italy. It includes iconographic types that found their way to Italy, such as that represented in a Flemish-style altarpiece in Florence painted by Hugo van der Goes, as well as Books of Hours originating in France. Building on the conclusions reached by previous studies, which reveal the images to be related and nearly identical in many cases, it appears that artists throughout Europe must have used the same model books or copied the works from a common source. As noted, these iconographic patterns were distributed over a large geographic area, whose center – in contrast to that of the written accounts – was in France. A close examination of these images reveals that while earlier portrayals of Saint Margaret represent evolving attempts to consolidate an iconography, her iconography varied only minimally from the thirteenth to the sixteenth-century in various parts of Europe, as well as in different media – ranging from Books of Hours to monumental sculptures and painted altarpieces. In some cases, a single manuscript can demonstrate the inconsistencies between literary and visual depictions of Margaret, such as her description and illustration in MS I 189 manuscript, dated to ca. 970, now in the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library, Hanover (fig. 51). The first illustrated image of Saint Margaret appears in a tenth-century copy of the Mombritius (MS I 189), and depicts the encounter between Margaret and the dragon (fig. 52). This manuscript already represents a combination of different traditions – demonstrated, as already noted, by the lack of correspondence between the text and the images: the text describes the dragon swallowing the saint, but the 17 William M. Milliken, “‘Saint Margaret’ by Antonello Gagini,” Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 30.1 (1943), pp. 3–5; Josepha Weitzmann-Fiedler, “Zur Illustration der Margaretenlegende,” Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, dritte Folge, 17 (1966), pp. 17–48; Federico Zeri, Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Florentine School (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1971), pp. 48–49; Lois Drewer, “Margaret of Antioch the Demon-Slayer, East and West: The Iconography of the Predella of the Boston Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine,” Gesta, 32.1 (1993), pp 11–20, particularly pp. 11–14; Julia I. Miller, “Miraculous Childbirth and the Portinari Altarpiece,” Art Bulletin, 77.2 (June 1995), pp. 249–261: This article was challenged by Susanne Franke, “Between Status and Spiritual Salvation: The Portinari Triptych and Tommaso Portinari’s Concern for His Memoria,” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, 33.3 (2007), pp. 123–144, particularly p. 140; Leanne Gilbertson, “The Vanni Altarpiece and the Relic Cult of Saint Margaret: Considering a Female Audience,” in Decorations for the Holy Dead: Visual Embellishment on Tombs and Shrines of Saints, eds. Stephen Lamia and Elizabeth Valdes del Alamo (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), pp. 179–190, pl. 8; Leanne Gilbertson, “Imaging Saint Margaret: Imitatio Christi and Imitatio Mariae in the Vanni Altarpiece,” in Images, Relics, and Devotional Practices in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, eds. Sally J. Cornelison and Scott B. Montgomery (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2006), pp. 115–138.

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image does not. The demon is described as black in the text but is actually red, and so on. Hahn suggests that the lavish illustrations of MS I 189 were based on an earlier variation that is now lost. Hahn also suggests that there is a correlation between the saint’s visual representation and a conceptual emphasis on her hands and the relic of her hand.18 Although Dresvina maintains that a consistent iconography first appeared in the illustrations of MS I 189 depicting the Passion of Margaret, such as her initial encounter with Olibrius or her subsequent torture, the iconography of her encounter with the dragon in this manuscript is far from typical; the saint and the dragon’s portrayal apart from one another, and the representation of the dragon as dying by disintegrating, for example, shows how removed these images are from all later iconographies. Weitzmann-Fiedler analyzes the image of Saint Margaret in illustrated books of her life cycle. She claims that the Bavarian State Library Clm. 1133.9 serves as the basis for the iconographic type developed in the twelfth–fourteenth centuries, while offering an image of a dismembered dragon, and positioning the saint beside it with a cross in her hands. This is a rare example of an illuminated Life of Saint Margaret depicting this type.19 The verso image depicts the dragon’s body, which has been severed to pieces, alongside Margaret, who appears in the orance posture, with both hands raised to the sides at a right angle – while she holds the cross in her hand. This iconography is clearly a continuation of the tradition of MS I 189, fol. 23r (fig. 51); since the text also follows the Mombritius variation, a connection between the two manuscripts is indeed plausible. The same tradition continues in the thirteenth-century KB, 76 F5, created at the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Bertin, France, and now in the National Library of the Netherlands, The Hague, as well as in the fourteenth-century Maurice de Sully MS Français 187, fol. 41, from Milan or Genoa, now in the National Library of France, Paris. Recto B in the Bavarian State Library, Munich, presents a different iconographic tradition, in which the head of the saint is caught in the dragon’s jaws, with only her lower body visible – an iconography that goes back to representations of Jonah. Weitzmann-Fiedler claims that it is a vestige of an earlier tradition that has been lost, comparing it with a fragment of a mid-thirteen-century miniature from the Graphic Arts Collection in Munich, which depicts the saint’s upper body rising from 18 This is not the same hand relic that was brought to Constantinople, and which is now lost. Cynthia Hahn, Passio Kiliani; Pseudo Theotimus, Passio Margaretae; Orationes: Vollständige Faksimile-Ausgabe im Originalformat des Codex Ms. I 189 aus dem Besitz der Niedersächischen Landesbibliothek Hannover (Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsantalt, 1988), p. 2; Hahn, “The Voices of the Saints,” pp. 20–31; Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon, p. 19. 19 Weitzmann-Fiedler, “Zur Illustration der Margaretenlegende”: Weitzmann-Fiedler stresses that England represents a different case study of the saint’s life cycle; see p. 31.

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Figure 52 – Saint Margaret and the Dragon, 1251–1300, miniature from Passio Santae Margaretae MS 1853 fol. C. 31v, The Civic Library of Verona © Biblioteca civica di Verona.

the dragon’s mouth. The Bavarian State Library manuscript might be chronologically later, but its resemblance to the Ottonian miniature suggests that the two probably originated in the same visual source. The iconography of the Bavarian State Library k. 557 fol. B recto presents a type that is replicated at least twice in Italy: in the Civic Library of Verona Passio Santae Margaretae 1853 C. 31v (fig. 52),20 and in the upper-right part of the Vanni Altarpiece (fig. 50). This proves that either the Bavarian State Library image was known in 20 Daniele Bini, Giuseppa Z. Zanichelli and Agostino Contò, Preghiera alla vergine: Con le leggende di San Giorgio e Santa Margherita; Commentario all’edizione in facsimile del manoscritto 1853 della Biblioteca civica di Verona (Modena: Il Bulino; Milan: Y. Press, 2007), pp. 40–41.

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Figure 53 – Saint Margaret Confronting the Dragon, 1251–1300, miniature from Passio Santae Margaretae MS 1853 fol. 31r, The Civic Library of Verona © Biblioteca civica di Verona.

Italy, or more likely, that it was designed after a model book that also served as the source for the Italian images. The miniature in the Franconian style from the Graphic Arts Collection in Munich, dated to the mid–thirteenth century, may have served as the source for the most common iconographic type – the saint emerging from the back of the dragon, as in the Aspremont Psalter-Hours (MS. Douce 118) in the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford; the MS Nouvelle acquisition française 16251, fol. 100, in the National Library of France, Paris; and MS 16251, fol. 100, from the Livre d’images de Madame Marie Belgian, in the National Library of France.

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Only a few images of Saint Margaret from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries have survived. The first enduring iconographic type from this early era presents the saint on the dragon’s back, like a plant sprouting from the ground. The dragon’s lacerated back is usually depicted in the form of the letter V. The saint is seen praying with her hands clasped, her gaze directed up to heaven, and sometimes holds a cross between her hands. Her skirt emerges from the dragon’s jaws to indicate her journey into it. Fourteenth-century artists continued to portray this type, as in the Master of Roman de Fauvel’s MS français 183, fol. 86v, in the National Library of France, Paris, which represents the saint praying against a geometric background. As I would like to argue, the iconography of this first type forms a hybrid figure, whose upper half is a woman and whose lower half is a dragon, much like images of fertility demons. I suggest that by incorporating such fertility images, the iconography of Saint Margaret came to constitute an apotropaic image, which was meant to provide protection over childbirth, infants, and fertility. The visual association between the images and functions of Lilith and Saint Margaret are overwhelming. This assimilation suggests that Christianized beliefs yearned for an image of a saint that would replace the images of fertility demons yet possess the same power to protect childbirth, infants, and fertility. I suggest that Saint Margaret’s image was conceived as an inverted mirror image of Lilith, which was meant to protect against her, hence the inconsistencies between images and texts. This would explain the incredible visual popularity of this particular scenario in her narrative, as well as her significant function as a patron for childbirth and children. This iconography can thus be viewed as a continuation of the ancient “holy woman” type pertaining to the motif of the woman and the dragon, stressing the beneficial, positive aspects of the union between a sacred woman and a dragon. Saint Margaret and Lilith can thus both be viewed as manifestations of the motif of the woman and the dragon in a Christianized atmosphere, serving as binary symbols representing the medieval and early modern concern with the themes of childbirth, fertility, and infants protection. Thus, the value of the motif is related to its endurance in folk traditions and rituals concerning liminal spaces between life and death. It was likely this function that accounted for the motif’s endurance and flourishing, and for its reincarnation in images of Saint Margaret. Saint Margaret’s image was meant to bridge the gaps between the different approaches to this motif, which included the controversy regarding its apotropaic aspects, as given expression in Christian theology and in folk traditions and rituals. The illustration in fol. 41 from the Sermons of Maurice de Sully MS Français 187 constitutes a combination of the two iconographic options: the saint is seen simultaneously being swallowed by the dragon and sprouting from its back, as in the first type, while the dragon’s body is bisected as in the Ottonian (fig. 51) and Bavarian State Library examples. Margaret is depicted frontally, one hand

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holding a cross and the other raised in prayer. The artist’s novel incorporation of both iconographies into one composition indicates that earlier examples of both versions, or a guidebook of some sort, were available to him, and that a variety of Saint Margaret iconographies already existed in Italy in the twelfth-fourteenth centuries. The fourteenth-century miniature Saint Margaret and the Dragon from the Passion of Margaret Egerton 877 f. 7, probably from Padua and now in the British Museum, London, exemplifies the persistence of the first iconographic type in Italy. This image depicts Margaret twice: on the right, she appears praying in her prison cell, with the dragon threatening her from outside, like a princess in a folk story; on the left, she is attached to the dragon’s back, so that their bodies fuse into a figure resembling an anguiped, once again suggesting an ancient influence. An atypical painting, attributed by Zeri to the workshop of Agnolo Gaddi, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (fig. 54), may reflect a continuation of the iconography of the Franconian-style illustration from Munich, or perhaps a renewed interest in themes from antiquity.21 The painting’s unique iconography presents the dragon’s jaws opening vertically to form a V shape, with the saint held calmly in between them. Margaret holds the palm of martyrdom in her left hand; her right hand clasps a small cross, which appears to have been altered later into a larger one. Color is important in this painting: the green hue of the dragon and its texture echo those of a palm frond, likening the dragon to a flower. The red veil, which seems to blow in the wind, is echoed by the small red handle of the cross. Margaret appears in profile, her long hair tied with a golden headband, and the yellow bust of her dress is decorated with a weave of golden threads. Her golden halo is embellished with Margheritoan – small white daisies, margaritae, after which Margaret is named. The association between the saint and small white objects – the flower and the pearl – is viewed in Christian theology as symbolizing humility and purity. The theme of agriculture is emphasized in this painting, with Margaret herself identified as a flower – blooming from the dragon’s jaws, which resemble green leaves.22 This painting also evokes the ancient concept of the virgin as a flower meant to be picked, which is related to the recurring association between the dragon and a flower or shoot, and in turn further strengthens the connection between the dragon and agriculture. The iconography of a hero such as Jason emerging from 21 Zeri, Italian Paintings, pp. 48–49. 22 Thomas H. Forbes, The Midwife and the Witch (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 76–79; James W. Earl, “Saint Margaret and the Pearl Maiden,” Modern Philology, 70.1 (1972), pp. 1–8; Gilbertson, “The Vanni Altarpiece and the Relic Cult of Saint Margaret,” p. 183. Thomas H. Forbes proves that pearl dust was used in childbirth to prevent excessive bleeding, and was considered having profound healing qualities.

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Figure 54 – Workshop of Agnolo Gaddi, Margaret Emerging from the Dragon, ca. 1390, tempera on wood, gold ground, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc. No. 41.190.23) © Met, public domain.

the dragon’s jaws (fig. 3) is fundamentally altered when the hero is a woman. Her emergence from its jaws, rather than from its back or belly, alludes to an active heroine rather than to a passive maiden. Yet she does not appear to struggle, but rather calmly exists between the dragon’s jaws like a flower blooming from a bud. She exits the gate of death as if resurrected from the kingdom of the underworld, while her alliance with the dragon once again forms an anguiped image, further suggesting an ancient influence. Another unique representation from fourteenth-century Florence is Bernardo Daddi’s Saint Margaret in the Bigallo Triptych altarpiece, which was probably made for the Confraternity of the Misericordia.23 Saint Margaret is depicted alongside Saint Catherine on the recto of the altar, which is seen only when the doors are closed. Both saints have their attributes beside them. This is a rare depiction of 23 I thank Professor William R. Levin for assisting me with the retrieval of this image. Richard Offner and Klara Steinweg, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting, rev. Miklós Boskovits and Mina Gregori (Florence: Giunti, 1989, 1991, 2001), sec. 3, III–V; William R. Levin, “The Bigallo Triptych: A Document of Confraternal Charity in Fourteenth Century Florence,” Confraternitas, 29.1 (2018), pp. 71–79.

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Margaret as detached from the dragon, which is alive and well at her feet, and there seems to be no tension between the two. Since the theme of this altarpiece is bestowing mercy on orphans and children who have been separated from their parents, Margaret’s separation from the dragon echoes this theme. This seems even more likely considering that Bernardo Daddi was most likely familiar with popular depictions of Saint Margaret, and chose an unusual way of presenting her relationship with the dragon. Another representation of the saint as detached from her dragon appears in the Passio Santae Margaretae 1853 (fig. 53), in the manuscript’s depiction of the first encounter between the two.24 In later images in the manuscript, Margaret is seen being swallowed by the dragon or, in accordance with the popular, first iconographic type, seated in its back (fig. 52). This codex suggests that Bernardo Daddi may have looked at books of models for inspiration (fig. 51). The Passio Santae Margaretae 1853 illustrated codex (figs. 52–53) underscores Saint Margaret’s popularity in Italy, for it contains three different iconographies for the same encounter with the dragon, which do not necessarily match the text. Another variation on the iconography of Margaret being devoured by the dragon appears in a Passio Santae Margaretae from Bologna, now in the Riccardiana Library in Florence, illustrated at the end of the thirteenth century. The interaction between saint and dragon in the Passio Santae Margaretae 1853 illustrations is puzzling. In the recto (fig. 53), Margaret appears to be conversing with the dragon; they establish eye contact, and she gestures as if explaining something. The dragon looks attentive and calm, and there appears to be no animosity between them. In the scene representing her body as partially caught inside the dragon’s jaws (fig. 52 top), her feet are firmly planted on the ground, making her appear steady and calm, almost as if she were extracting a bone stuck in the dragon’s throat. The lower illustration (fig. 52 bottom) is the most intriguing; for some reason, the dragon’s head has been erased, although its location can be surmised based on that of the tail, which is seen on the other side. Furthermore, the surviving tip of the dragon’s nose suggests that it was facing Margaret, and that in this instance too they were making eye contact. The saint has one hand just below the dragon’s head, and is gently gesturing to it, while her other hand instructs with a pointed finger. She smiles kindly at the restrained and cooperative wild beast. The fact that the original illustration was later found disturbing enough to necessitate the erasure of the dragon’s head seems to be an important clue to understanding the calm and cooperative relationship between the two f igures, the nature of their interaction, and the dissonance it reveals. 24 Bini, Zanichelli and Contò, Preghiera alla Vergine, pp. 38–41.

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Other important examples from the fourteenth century include several altarpieces, particularly from Tuscany, which are dedicated to Saint Margaret and her life cycle. Gilbertson’s investigation of the Vanni Altarpiece (fig. 50) also includes a comparison with several others, such as the Saint Margherita a Montici altarpiece and the one in Saint Margaret’s chapel in San Miniato al Monte.25 An altarpiece addresses an entire community, functioning differently from a miniature illustration in a book or a small-scale object. As such, it can sometimes shed light on a political or social issue, as in the case of the Vanni Altarpiece panel depicting healing by means of relics, which was intended to aggrandize the church and the saint’s cult. The saint’s appearance in an altarpiece stresses her importance and the preeminence of the church and of the relics stored there – most probably relics of Margaret herself, which are represented in a side pane as having the power to heal and exorcise.26 Gilbertson argues that the Vanni Altarpiece was probably created in the context of a community recovering from the ravages of the Black Plague, noting the rapid growth of Saint Margaret’s cult in Tuscany both during the plague and in its aftermath in the mid-fourteenth century. The altarpiece painting of Saint Margaret could have served as a propaganda image underscoring the heightened relevance of the church and its relics to the community during this time. Altar paintings addressed not only the literate elite, but also the illiterate lower classes, not to mention the population of maidens who were kidnapped in the Balkans and brought to Italy due to diminished fertility among the elite and who did not speak the local language. Yet regardless of the chosen medium, the themes of childbirth and infant protection were central during this period to images and texts concerning Saint Margaret throughout Europe, ranging from miniature book illustrations designed for private moments of personal piety to monumental sculptures and paintings in the public sphere, which appealed to entire communities. Moreover, the documentation of the migration of relics in the thirteenth century, and the fact that most of the literary evidence and relics originated in Italy, indicate that Saint Margaret was highly regarded there even prior to the outbreak of the plague. The Vanni Altarpiece (fig. 50) is one of the earliest surviving representations of Saint Margaret as a monumental, isolated figure, who is portrayed with the dragon at her feet. This is an example of the second iconographic type – the calcatio colli gesture – as defined by Dresvina:27 This gesture, prevalent in antiquity, featured a vanquished enemy being crushed under the victor’s feet. Dresvina’s research 25 Gilbertson, “The Vanni Altarpiece and the Relic Cult of Saint Margaret,” pp. 179–190, pl. 8; Gilbertson, “Imaging Saint Margaret,” pp. 115–138. 26 Peter Humfrey, The Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993); Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005). 27 Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon, p. 173.

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focuses on England, where this type was particularly popular, while appearing only rarely in mainland Europe. As already noted in the previous chapter, this iconographic type appears in depictions of Mary trampling the dragon (fig. 41).28 It is also evident in representations of Jesus trampling the serpent and the lion, such as in the fifth- to early sixth-century CE mosaic from the Chapel of the Archbishop in Ravenna, Italy. Saint George was also commonly represented in accordance with this iconographic type, as in the MS. 1853, fol. 26r. miniature illustration of the saint dated to ca. 1270, now in the Civic Library of Verona. The archangel Michael was depicted in a similar manner, as evident in the painting dated to 1380–1389, now in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (fig. 55).29 The Christian interpretation of the calcatio colli as representing a cosmic opposition between good and evil, light and dark, the beautiful and the grotesque and so forth, is reflected in the Christian concept of the victory of positive forces over negative ones.30 The integration of this 28 Revelation 12:1–17. David M. Lindsey, Woman and the Dragon: Apparitions of Mary (Gretna, LA: Pelican, 2000), pp. 25–27. 29 Revelation 20:2. For a discussion of Saint George, see George Kaftal, Saints in Italian Art (Florence: Sansoni, 1952–1985), pp. 443–446, 649–658; Balboni, “Giorgio: Santo, martire,” in Bibliotheca sanctorum, VI, pp. 512–525; Sotomayor, “Giorgio: Santo, martire—Iconografia,” in Bibliotheca sanctorum, VI, pp. 525–545; Joseph Fontenrose, Python (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 515–520; Gerd Heinz-Mohr, Lessicon di iconografia cristiana (Milan: Istituto Propaganda Libraria, 1982), pp. 143–145; Georges DidiHuberman, Riccardo Garbetta and Manuela Morgaine, Saint Georges et le dragon: Versions d’une legend (Paris: Adam Biro, 1994); Samantha J. E. Riches, St George: Hero, Martyr and Myth (Gloucester: Sutton, 2000); Muriel C. Morabito and Pasquale Morabito, “Saint George and the Dragon: Cult, Culture and Foundation of the City,” Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, 18 (2011), pp. 135–153; Daniel Ogden, Drakōn: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 402–404. For discussions of the battle with the Archangel Michael, see Marian W. Smith, “The Apocalypse of John,” College Art Journal, 9.3 (Spring 1950), pp. 295–307; Neil Forsyth, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 248–257; Bernard F. Batto, Slaying the Dragon: Mythmaking in the Biblical Tradition (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992), pp. 174–178; Darrell D. Hannah, Michael and Christ: Michael Traditions and Angel Christology in Early Christianity (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999); Pierre-Marie Beaude, “Les dragons dans la Bible,” in Dans la gueule du dragon: Histoire, ethnologie, littérature, ed. Jean-Marie Privat (Sarreguemines: Pierron, 2000), pp. 135–143; Michael Koch, Drachenkampf und Sonnenfrau: Zur Funktion des Mythischen in der Johannesapokalypse am Beispiel von Apk 12 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004); Ogden, Drakōn, p. 385. 30 Ibid., George W. Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 16–17; Louise W. Lippincott, “The Unnatural History of Dragons,” Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin, 77.334 (1981), pp. 2–24; Bernice F. Davidson, Severo and the Sea-Monsters, intro. Charles Ryskamp, technical notes. Richard E. Stone (New York: Frick Collection, 1997), pp. 23–24; Mirella Levi d’Ancona, Lo Zoo del Rinascimento: Il significato degli animali nella pittura italiana dal XIV al XVI secolo (Lucca: M. Pacini Fazzi, 2001), pp. 120–121; Ariane Delacampagne and Christian Delacampagne, Here Be Dragons (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), pp. 133–134; Ilaria Ciseri, “From the Pagan Idol to Donatello’s ‘Bronze Horse’: The Iconography of Condottieri in Florentine Sculpture in the Early 15th Century,” in The Springtime of the Renaissance: Sculpture and the Arts in Florence 1400–60, eds. Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi and Marc Bormand (Florence: Mandragora, 2013), pp. 131–149, p. 132.

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Figure 55 – Archangel Michael Trampling the Dragon, 1380–1389, Tuscany, tempera and gold leaf on panel, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore © The Walters Art Museum, public domain.

motif into iconic depictions of various saints was fairly common, and can also be seen in depictions of Saint Margaret vanquishing the black demon. Since this type represents a minority of the depictions in the corpus of Saint Margaret and the dragon, it cannot account for the overall popularity of her iconography. Moreover, in the Vanni Altarpiece (fig. 50) Margaret does not stomp on the dragon, who is coiled around her legs; and rather than appearing dead and defeated, the dragon looks alive and powerfully magnetic, its upswept tail reminiscent of an ancient scepter.

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The Vanni Altarpiece presents the patron who commissioned the work alongside the saint.31 One of the smaller Life illustrations on the altarpiece depicts Margaret being swallowed by the dragon, in a manner identical to the upper scene in the Passio Santae Margaretae 1853 fol. C. 31v (fig. 52), and the far-left illustration in the Bavarian State Library. The altarpiece thus offers two opposing depictions of the saint with the dragon. Another important scene represented in the Vanni Altarpiece is that of pilgrims visiting Margaret’s grave and coming into contact with her holy body parts, as the blind, the disabled, a pregnant woman, and the demon-possessed are cured with the help of her relics. This image reflects the saint’s role as a healer, a protector of fertility and pregnancy, and an exorcist – characteristics that will be further elaborated upon below. The Santa Margherita a Montici altarpiece from an abbey near Florence is a rare monumental representation of Saint Margaret; although she appears without her dragon, the life-cycle illustrations surrounding her confirm her identity. Gilbertson rightly analyzes her appearance as resembling that of a nun, and as de-emphasizing her beauty while underscoring her androgynous character, chastity and virginity (locus sanctus).32 The left-hand scene in the middle of the altarpiece, meanwhile, depicts the first type of traditional iconography, representing her together with the dragon. The numerous representations of Saint Margaret in diverse mediums reveal a number of consistent patterns. There are a few examples of the calcatio colli type, such as a miniature illustration MS. M.3 fol. 97r, which was made in Italy, perhaps in Lombardy or Romagna. In this illustration, the saint gestures with only one hand, while the dragon gazes at her from below in admiration; once again, the dragon is not defeated or dead but very much alive, although it is being crushed under the saint’s legs. Another similar example is Giovanni da Gaeta’s Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine, the left panel of the triptych Coronation of the Madonna, from the Italian region of Lazio dated to 1456, now in the inventory of historical and artistic assets of the diocese at Gaeta. The second type was mostly notably featured in the fifteenth century, in images depicting Margaret alongside another saint, with the dragon as her iconic attribute. The attitudes of the dragon and the saint are not those of a defeated enemy and a victorious hero. Unlike Saint George and the Archangel Michael, who frequently have their spear jammed into the dragon’s body or mouth, Saint Margaret is represented with the dragon as her living attribute. The position of Margaret’s dress in MS. M.3 fol. 97r suggests that 31 Miller, “Miraculous Childbirth and the Portinari Altarpiece,” pp. 250, 259–261. 32 Gilbertson, “The Vanni Altarpiece and the Relic Cult of Saint Margaret,” p. 183. On androgynous aspects of Saint Margaret, see Marie Delcourt, Hermaphrodite: Myths and Rites of the Bisexual Figure in Classical Antiquity (London: Studio Books, 1961), pp. 84–101; Petroff, Body and Soul, p. 107, n. 2.

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she is standing behind the dragon and not on it, and the dragon looks cooperative, perhaps even mesmerized by the saint. The four panels, which previously flanking a central altarpiece in Siena by Giovanni di Paolo, and now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, depict Margaret on the right with her head covered, standing on the live dragon and holding Margaretio flowers. The dragon’s role in this type is iconic rather than active. The calcatio colli type is also evident in the statue of Saint Margaret by Antonello Gaggini dated to 1520–1530, now in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Antonello Gaggini was born into a family that produced sculptures in Genoa, Florence, and Rome, and transported the calcatio colli gesture into images of Saint Margaret in Sicily. In this medium-sized statue, which was probably intended for the Palermo Cathedral in Sicily, Margaret is atypically depicted wearing ancient-looking garments.33 A key example of the second type is Van der Goes’s Portinari Altarpiece from the Chapel of the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital, dated to 1474–1475, and now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.34 Miller suggests that the centrality of Saint Margaret in this panting accounts for its placement in a hospital where babies were delivered, since as a patron of women in labor and infants, the saint’s image was believed to have protective powers. Saint Margaret probably also had some personal meaning for the painting’s patron, Maria Maddalena Baroncelli Portinari, because the traditional order of the saints in the painting is reversed, so that Maddalena appears alongside Saint Margaret in order to highlight the saint’s importance to her. Susanne Franke proves that the altarpiece was not originally intended for the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital; nonetheless, its eventual placement there supports Miller’s assertions. This painting also provides important evidence of an artist who was invited from Flanders to Florence, bringing with him his knowledge of Saint Margaret’s northern iconography. Roger van der Weyden’s painting Saint Margaret and Saint Apollonia, dated to 1445–1450, and now in the Berlin State Museum, is a Flemish example of the first type of iconography, which is also evident in Van der Goes’s painting. The Portinari Altarpiece offered an opportunity for Italian artists to study this iconography; the young Raphael, for one, came to Florence ca. 1504, and during that time was able to see this painting.35 Raphael is known to have been extremely 33 Milliken, “Saint Margaret,” pp. 3–5; Hanno-Walter Kruft, “Antonello Gagini as Co-Author with Michelangelo on the Tomb of Pope Julius II,” Burlington Magazine, 117.870 (1975), pp. 598–601; Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978), reproduced 110. 34 Miller, “Miraculous Childbirth and the Portinari Altarpiece”; Franke, “Between Status and Spiritual Salvation,” p. 140. 35 Richard Harprath, “L’evoluzione stilistica nei disegni del period fiorentino di Raffaello,” in Studi su Raffaello: Atti del Congresso internazionale di studi, Urbino-Firenze, 6–14 aprile 1984, eds. Micaela Sambucco Hamoud and Maria L. Strocchi (Urbino: Quattro Venti, 1987), I, pp. 391–400; Jürg Meyer zur Capellen, Raphael in Florence, ed. Jane Havell, trans. Stefan B. Polter (London: Azimuth, 1996), I, pp. 36–59.

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curious and interested in learning about different kinds of art. He painted his two paintings of the saint, the Louvre Saint Margaret and the Vienna Saint Margaret, ca. 1518. Both compositions are remarkably innovative, and introduce profound changes into the saint’s iconography. Although the paintings by Raphael, as well as those by Titian, are central to a study of the saint’s iconography, they remain outside the scope of the current study, marking as they do a later stage in the transformation of her iconography within early modernity. The first type of iconography associated with Saint Margaret, which was by far the most popular in the fifteenth century, mostly in Books of Hours, portrays the saint rising from the dragon’s back, while stressing the liveliness of the dragon and the collaborative union between it and the fair maiden. In variations across Europe, a part of Margaret’s skirt protrudes from the dragon’s jaws, alluding to the journey that the saint had undergone inside it. Thus, it appears that both artists and their audiences held in high esteem the variation of the story that Jacobus de Voragine and other writers disparaged in their hagiographic accounts of Saint Margaret’s life. This type extended across France, Germany, Flanders, and additional areas, a fact that stresses its centrality and importance of this iconography in the fifteenth century. Common origins or models can be identified, and many images appear to be related or to closely duplicate one another, relying on the same model books or copying a common source. The first type has several variations. In one of them, the dragon is depicted with a unicorn’s horn. This horn represents the crucifix and alludes to Christ, goodness, and purity. Even though scholars of early modernity contended that dragons symbolized the devil, this image of a dragon with a unicorn’s horn thus seems to unite two opposing symbols of good and evil.36 The current discussion, however, disputes this view, arguing that such unicorn-dragons, when appearing alongside Saint Margaret, carried an important message that challenged the symbolic association of dragons with evil,37 suggesting that artists and their audiences viewed Saint Margaret’s dragon in a more positive manner than has been suggested by earlier investigations. In MS 168, fol. 222r, now in the Walters Museum, Baltimore, the unicorn-dragon, which in fact resembles a dog, seems to be allied with the saint growing inside it, while a piece of her dress protrudes from its mouth. The figure of the unicorn-dragon 36 Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art, p. 28; Gerardus Q. Reijners, The Terminology of The Holy Cross in Early Christian Literature: As Based upon Old Testament Typology (Nijmegen: Dekker en Van de Vegt, 1965), pp. 81–82; Gerhart B. Ladner, God, Cosmos, and Humankind: The World of Early Christian Symbolism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), p. 128; A. Delacampagne and C. Delacampagne, Here Be Dragons, p. 81; Sharon Khalifa-Gueta, “The Evolution of the Western Dragon,” Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 4.4 (October 2018), pp. 265–290. 37 See note 21.

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Figure 56 – Masters of the Gold Scrolls, Saint Margaret and the Dragon, ca. 1440, miniature from a Book of Hours, the Hague MMW, 10 F 11, museum Huis van het Boek, The Hague © Museum Huis van het Boek.

is also exemplified by MMW, 10 F 11 (fig. 56) and MS M.19 fol. 157v, in the Morgan Library and Museum, New York. These two examples were probably based on a popular and well-known image, as several of the same details appear in additional compositions. These include the fold that seems to reveal the image of God the Father on the upper-left side of the composition; the geometrically patterned background;

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and a perspectival high ground line that creates a sense of depth. The dragon and saint both look in the same direction with a similar attitude: the saint’s hands are joined in prayer with a cross sometimes inserted between them, and the dragon stands on its feet or is portrayed as if walking. This variation on the first iconographic type representing Saint Margaret and the dragon thus provides a positive statement concerning the union and collaboration between the holy woman and the dragon from which she emerges, and associates the saint within the ancient “holy woman” type. The rejection of the image of the dragon’s positive charge by late medieval and early modern male theologians may thus be taken as an indication that it conveyed to them a message of female power that they found troublesome, despite Margaret’s status as a saint. The details of God the Father on the upper-left side of the composition, and the geometrically patterned background, recur in several other known images. However, in these variations, such as the fifteenth-century Harley MS 2985, fol. 37v, in the British Library, the dragon does not resemble a unicorn, but rather has leonine features. In the Hague KB, 76, F 14, which probably originated in Paris and is now in the National Library of the Netherlands (fig. 57), the saint seems oblivious to the existence of the dragon. Yet in Ms. 650, 146r, originally owned by Jean, Duke of Berry, and now in the Arsenal Library, Paris, as well as in the Egerton MS 2019, fol. 216r, which probably also originated in Paris, now in the British Library, London, she looks fondly at the dragon. The saint is dressed in the fine clothing of a princess or a young noblewoman, with long blond hair that elegantly covers her shoulders. In Ms. 650, fol. 146r, and in the Egerton MS 2019, fol. 216r, the modeling of the dragon as a lion is explicit, its golden fur echoing the saint’s hair, so that it becomes a distinct type. In the fifteenth century, the dragon’s wings began to cover its wound, forming a sort of seat for the saint, as if she were sitting in a chariot. They are repeated in images such as the Hague KB 76 F 14 (fig. 57); the illustration by Willem Vrelant and his workshop in MS. Ludwig IX 8, fols. 57 and 81, MS M.19, fol. 157; and Lieven van Lathem’s MS. 37, fol. 49v. These manuscripts, all from Bruges, are now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. The winged dragon as a symbol connecting the underworld and the heavenly realm, and the ancient motif of the dragon chariot discussed at length in Chapter Three, appear to be the source for this iconographic feature. The Codice Rustici from Casa de Dante, composed in Florence in 1448 and now in the National Library, Florence, as well as the Harley Book of Hours, MS 2974, fol. 165v in the British Museum, London, both share this same iconographic feature,38 portraying the saint as standing on the dragon and covered by its wings, which lend it the appearance of a chariot. 38 Petroff, Body and Soul, p. 97, n. 1.

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Figure 57 – Saint Margaret and the Dragon, 1490–1500, miniature illustration from a Book of Hours, KB, 76 F 14 (use of Rome) probably from Paris, National Library of the Netherlands, The Hague © The Hague, KB, National Library of the Netherlands.

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Figure 58 – Saint Margaret and the Dragon, 1499, miniature illustration from Lewis E 95, f. 139v, Free Library of Philadelphia (mca0951390) © Courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department.

In some cases, the dragon is wingless, so that its appearance resembles a boat or a crescent moon. One example is Lewis E 95, fol. 139v (fig. 58), a miniature from the Horae Beatae Virginis Mariae. Another example is the Book of Hours of Margaret of Austria and Alessandro de Medici – MS. 55.K.16 by Francesco Boccardi, composed in Florence in 1536 and now in the Library of the Accademia dei Lincei, Rome. The Book

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of Hours of Margaret of Austria and Alessandro de Medici is especially noteworthy; most probably made for Margaret of Austria, it highlights the importance of Saint Margaret to the Habsburg dynasty. The extreme similarities between these images reflect one artist’s awareness of another or a common origin. This iconography is also related to a familiar and widespread iconography of Mary as the Woman of the Apocalypse, standing on the moon and confronting a hellish dragon, as exemplified by Albrecht Dürer’s Woman of the Apocalypse.39 Such images of Saint Margaret echo images of Mary standing on the moon as she confronts the seven-headed dragon, and are cases of Imitatio Mariae (imitating Mary), while embodying the ancient connection between femininity and the moon. Yet in Margaret’s case, the dragon and the moon become one, while also appearing as a boat in which the saint rides. A colorful dragon appears in many illustrations in Saint Margaret legendas, 40 such as in MS. M. 194, fol. 159r, in the Morgan Library and Museum, New York, and in two Books of Hours from France by Jean Bourdichon (fig. 59). These books, illustrated for Anne of Brittany, the queen of France, also contain an illustration depicting the queen as accompanied by three of her patron saints, Ursula, Margaret, and Ann, and were probably intended to comfort and protect her after her difficult childbirths and the unfortunate deaths of infant children. The depiction of Saint Margaret alongside a roaring dragon was a relatively new iconography in the fifteenth century. The Dunois Hours Egerton MS 2019, f. 216r, originally from Paris and now in the British Library, London, depicts the saint praying calmly, while turning her back on the fire-breathing dragon. This type is also partially present in the miniature illustration of Saint Margaret included in the breviary of Queen Isabella of Castile, Add MS 18851, f. 406v, also in the British Library. It continued into the sixteenth century in illustrations such as Latin 1171, fol. 87r, in the National Library of France, Paris. Although this type appears in only a minority of the images, it deserves attention in light of Elizabeth A. Petroff’s discussion of the relationship between other female saints and serpents, although her study focuses exclusively on the Italian context. Petroff compares the earlier legenda of Margaret with new local saints who emerged in the thirteenth–fifteenth centuries in Italy, such as Umiliana de Cerchi and Verdiana. Both saints lived in an abbey and dedicated their lives to religious devotion. In order to test them, the devil sent serpents to linger constantly in their presence and distract them from their piety. Saint Umiliana would bind 39 Revelations 12:1–17. Erwin Panofsky, The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971), pp. 51–59; Colin T. Eisler, The Genius of Jacopo Bellini (New York: Abrams, 1989), pp. 315–320; Natasha O’Hear and Anthony O’Hear, Picturing the Apocalypse: The Book of Revelation in the Arts over Two Millennia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 111–130. 40 Dresvina presents the similarities and differences between descriptions of the dragon in different hagiographies of Saint Margaret; see Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon, pp. 178–181, 278–288 (Appendix 3).

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Figure 59 – Jean Bourdichon, Saint Margaret and the Dragon, miniature illustration from the book Les Grandes Heures d’Anne de Bretagne, National Library of France, Paris © BNF.

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her legs together at night so that the serpent could not penetrate her, whereas Saint Verdiana wept when one of the serpents, sent to torment her, died.41 Petroff focuses her analysis on the educational aspects of these legends, which were intended to teach women moral behavior that was not entirely passive, yet certainly not aggressive, by encouraging them to actively ignore the problem in question while taking certain precautions. As I would like to argue, these legends also reveal an ongoing concern with the motif of the woman and the dragon, and with the association between serpents and holy women, which reflect the endurance of this concept in folk traditions. Among Saint Verdiana’s relics in Castelfiorentino was a serpent’s head in a basket, which, according to the tale, was cut off and kept there by the saint herself – a possible excuse to continue the ancient tradition of worshipping and tending to snakes. In this context, the image of Margaret, praying calmly while ignoring the fire-breathing dragon, displays a form of behavior that would also be desirable during childbirth, of which she was the patron. The iconography of Saint Margaret includes a third type of representation, in which the saint holds the dragon in her hand like a pet. This uncommon type, which can be seen in the painting of Saint Margaret dated to the end of the fifteenth century, in the Archdiocesan Museum, Krakow, and in a reliquary bust of Saint Margaret dated to 1465–1470, now at the Art Institute of Chicago, seems to have appeared in places geographically remote from the artistic centers of Europe. Oswald Goetz and Meyric R. Rogers compare the saint and her attitude toward the pet-like dragon with a statue of Saint Agnes, relating to both as part of a series of four female saints. Seeing how far removed this statue is from the narrative, the authors connect the iconography of Saint Margaret as the patron of agriculture and motherhood to the iconography of Ceres/Demeter. 42 The second type, that representing the motif of calcatio colli, also continued to appear in the fifteenth century, as seen in the depiction of Albrecht Dürer’s Saint Margaret in the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam. Margaret wears a flowing, luxurious garment, which emphasizes her abdomen and makes her appear pregnant. A crown adorned with rays of light and a veil of modesty top her head, similar to that of Mary in Dürer’s engraving The Woman of the Apocalypse, and the 41 On Saint Verdiana and Saint Umiliana, see Vito of Cortona, Vita auctore vito cortonensi: Acta Sanctorum (Antwerp: B. Humilianae de Cerchis, 1685): 2.20; Acta sanctorum (Antwerp: B. Humilianae de Cerchis, 1685): May 19. Elizabeth A. Petroff, “Medieval Women Visionaries: Seven Stages to Power,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 3.1 (Spring 1978), pp. 34–45; Elizabeth A. Petroff, Consolation of the Blessed: Women Saints in Medieval Tuscany (New York: Alta Gaia Society, 1979), pp. 31–62; Petroff, Body and Soul, pp. 97–109, particularly pp. 102–106. 42 Oswald Goetz and Meyric R. Rogers, “A Medieval Masterpiece Rediscovered,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago, 38.4 (April–May 1944), pp. 53–58.

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saint’s pregnant-like depiction may also allude to the Virgin Mary.43 Nevertheless, her curly hair flows and covers her body, perhaps alluding to Mary Magdalene or to the anguiped image of Lilith in the Eden scenario discussed in the previse chapter, as she is also sometimes represented with lush hair and a crown. Indeed, one could interpret this painting as a syncretic image of women defeating evil, referring simultaneously to the Virgin Mary, to Mary Magdalene, and to Saint Margaret. It is also possible that the figure’s pregnancy was meant to allude to Saint Margaret’s association with pregnancy and childbirth, although she was never described as pregnant herself. However, if this is indeed Saint Margaret, it is the first time that the dragon presented alongside her appears dead. Up until this point, even in images that portrayed the dragon’s body as lacerated, it still appears alive and upright. Jean Poyer’s illustration in the prayer book of Anne of Brittany, MS M.50, fol. 20v, in the Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum, New York, also depicts the dragon as a corpse bleeding on the ground, while the saint, with no trace of blood on her white-and-gold dress, prays beside it. Raphael may have been familiar with the image of the dead dragon through Dürer’s illustration, and echoed it in both of his Saint Margaret paintings, but this image will not be elaborated upon here. 44 Several iconographic details recur in most depictions of Saint Margaret from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: she is portrayed as an upper-class adolescent girl, even a princess; her fine clothing, whose texture suggests expensive fabrics, is sometimes embroidered with gold, and her jewelry, as well as her delicate, soft body and gestures, all indicate a person of high rank. Her prison is a comfortable one, and on some occasions the room opens onto a garden. In certain cases the room does not look like a prison at all, but rather like a luxurious living room or even an outdoor site. This association of Saint Margaret with the upper classes in the illustrations appearing in Books of Hours were intended to provide their readers – aristocratic women and girls – with models for exemplary female behavior and spiritual contemplation, which were intended to instruct and inspire piety. 45 43 Tina Pippin, “Woman, Mother and Bride: An Exegetical Investigation into the ‘Ecclesial’ Notions of the Apocalypse,” Biblical Interpretation, 16.4 (2008), pp. 381–382. 44 Mark W. Roskill, Dolce’s “Aretino” and Venetian Art Theory of the Cinquecento (New York: New York University Press; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Library, 1968), p. 120; Nicole Dacos, Le logge di Raffaello: Maestro e bottega di fronte all’antico (Rome: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, Libreria dello Stato, 1977), p. 80. For the connection between Dürer and Raphael, see Roberto Salvini, “Raffaello e Dürer,” in Studi su Raffaello, eds. Sambucco Hamoud and Strocchi, I, pp. 145–150; Jan Bialostocki, “Raffaello e Dürer come personificazioni di due ideali artistici nel Romanticismo,” in Studi su Raffaello, eds., Sambucco Hamoud and Strocchi, I, pp. 133–144. 45 Maddocks, “Pictures for Aristocrats”; Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, “Saints’ Lives and the Female Reader,” Forum for Modern Language Studies, 27.4 (1991), pp. 314–332, particularly p. 321; Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, pp. 539–540.

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Depicting Margaret as a stereotypical beauty with long blond tresses, pale skin, soft hands, and delicate movements – a delicate young maiden protective of her virginity – cast her as a role model for her target audience. Indeed, the number of European princesses who were named Margaret is statistically overwhelming. Most significantly in the context of the current study, these illustrated images represent an iconographic tradition concerning a collaboration between the saint and the dragon. There is no animosity between the maiden saint and the dragon, who shares her meditative mood. Moreover, the dragon is portrayed in a manner attesting to its benevolence, by means such as the facial features of a griffin or, as in Francesco Boccardi’s illustration, with a unicorn’s horn. As noted, this union between the saint and dragon creates a visual fusion, forming the image of an anguiped or dracontopede. Drewer’s analysis of Barna da Siena’s predella of the Boston Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine, which shows Saint Margaret slaying the black demon on the left, assists in comparing the iconography of Margaret with the dragon, typical in Western Europe, to that of Marina slaying the demon, which is typical in Eastern Europe and Byzantine images. 46 Drewer attempts to understand why Margaret is atypically represented with the demon rather than a dragon. There are several representations of Margaret with the demon in Western art, but Drewer argues that the Eastern Saint Marina was more often the subject of such an iconography, which involved a gender reversal of the Archangel Michael combating the dragon. In order to better understand the iconography of Saint Margaret, it is useful to consider her most widely represented male counterpart, Saint George. As previously noted, the legenda of Saint George is rooted in the ancient dragon-slayer topos originating in the myth of Perseus and Andromeda. 47 The most famous scene in Saint George’s hagiography describes him as a Roman knight who arrives in the city of Silene, where a princess is being sacrificed to a dragon that is terrorizing the city, and George slays the dragon. Although the princess is offered to him in marriage, he refuses and continues on his journey. Unlike Perseus, George does not aspire to wed the virgin princess, preferring to preserve his male virginity and continues on the journey leading to his eventual martyrdom. Saint George was extremely popular throughout Europe. His consistent and distinct iconography depicts him riding a white horse and plunging a spear into the dragon, while a fair princess observes the combat. Saint George is considered the patron saint of all warriors and military events, and particularly of crusades. This military connotation contributed to his positioning as a central protective saint, who was highly important in several 46 Drewer, “Margaret of Antioch the Demon-Slayer,” pp. 11–14. 47 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: 58.238–242.

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Figure 60 – Donatello, Saint George Fighting the Dragon, marble relief, originally from Orsanmichele, now in the Nazionale del Bargello Museum, Florence (1416–1417) © Rufus46, public domain, Wikimedia.

Italian cities, including Florence and Venice. His image’s extreme popularity is thus related to his protective qualities. 48 Robyn Cadwallader considers the narrative of Saint Margaret to be an ill-fitting reversal of the dragon-slayer topos – with the helpless and defeated maiden replacing the male hero. Yet Margaret is not a helpless and passive princess like the one in Saint George’s story, but rather actively exorcises and confronts the dragon, leaving readers and viewers puzzling about the moral of the story. 49 The puzzle becomes even more complex when the iconography of Saint George is compared to that of Saint Margaret. Saint George’s consistent attribute is the horse (usually white), as in Paolo Uccello’s Saint George, dated to 1455–1470 and now in the National Gallery of London, and in Donatello’s Saint George relief, dated to 1416–1417 and now in the Nazionale del Bargello Museum, Florence (fig. 60). This attribute is charged with a positive character, in contrast to the negative charge of the dragon. In the traditional and most popular iconography of Saint George, the dragon is shown as already vanquished, having been speared by the saint. By contrast, in depictions of Saint Margaret, the dragon, though subdued, appears to be alive, unscathed, and even physically attached to her – so that the two, as noted, come together to form an anguiped image. This contrast reveals the endurance of the binary, gendered roles ascribed to men and women in relation to dragons since 48 Colin T. Eisler, Dürer’s Animals (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), p. 220; M. Morabito and P. Morabito, “Saint George and the Dragon”; Ciseri, “From the Pagan Idol to Donatello’s ‘Bronze Horse’,” pp. 131–132; Didi-Huberman, Garbetta, and Morgaine. Saint Georges et le dragon. 49 Robyn Cadwallader, Three Methods for Reading the Thirteenth-Century Seinte Marherete: Archetypal, Semiotic, and Deconstructionist (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008).

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antiquity: whereas a man has to defeat the dragon in order to claim his reward, a woman, by contrast, has the sacred role of communicating and collaborating with the dragon.50 The iconography of Saint George, as made evident for instance in Uccello’s painting, represents the critical moment when the male saint actively stabs the dragon. The princess is mainly an attribute, passive and static, and the dragon has already been neutralized. Whereas in many painted narratives Saint George simply kills the dragon. Uccello’s painting offers an alternative scene, in which as Saint George spears the dragon, the princess ties her girdle around the compliant creature and leads it to town, where, according to this hagiographic variation, it is slaughtered by the townsfolk.51 Moreover, whereas representations of Saint George constitute narrative scenes, early Renaissance representations of Saint Margaret do not depict a narrative, but rather form a conceptual emblem of a maiden fused with a dragon, which is almost always alive and unharmed, and its injury is depicted as sublimely as possible. The following section turns to further explore the dissonance between Saint Margaret’s images and literary accounts of her life, which attempted to eliminate her encounter with the dragon.

The Dissonance between Literary and Visual Sources As noted earlier, various literary sources concerned with the hagiography of Saint Margaret disclosed a sense of uneasiness concerning the scene of her encounter with the dragon. Indeed, several of the early Greek variations on this story question the event of her being swallowed by the dragon, while the variation recounted in the Metaphrastes eliminates this event entirely. Building on this approach, Jacobus de Voragine tried to dismiss the story of Margaret’s second encounter with the dragon as unreliable. This uneasiness concerning the idea of a delicate maiden overcoming such a demonic force, and particularly concerning the variation in which Margaret is swallowed by the dragon and then bursts out of it, was expressed as an attack on the most popular iconography used to represent this duo. Although the written word is highly valued in Christianity, the target audience for these narratives was occasionally illiterate. It would therefore make sense that certain literary sources, such as the Golden Legend, narrated this particular 50 One must nevertheless note unusual figures such as Saint Sylvester, see Lippincott, “The Unnatural History of Dragons,” pp. 8–15; Kaftal, Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting, pp. 521–534. 51 Martin Davies, “Uccello’s ‘St George’ in London,” Burlington Magazine, 101.678–679 (September–October 1959), pp. 301–315.

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variation of the story in order to be consistent with the visual image familiar to their audience. Yet why, beyond its portrayal of a powerful female f igure, did Jacobus de Voragine and other writers disapprove so strongly of this image? I contend that due to its residual association with the motif of the woman and the dragon, and its ritual function in childbirth and in devotional artifacts, which encapsulate ancient concepts and beliefs, it was identified by clergymen of the late medieval epoch as “pagan.” The dissonance between the narrated legend of Saint Margaret and her visual representation thus offers further proof that the popular image of Saint Margaret was inspired by sources other than Christian hagiographies. In the written narratives, Margaret is consigned to her prison cell following the first episode of her torture, after iron hooks had already torn through her clothing and flesh. The visual image, however, bears no traces of her torture: Margaret looks beautiful, her opulent clothing is intact, and there are no hideous signs of her suffering. Since Margaret was disowned by her father following her conversion to Christianity, and lived the life of a poor shepherdess with her wet nurse, it seems strange that she would possess such beautiful and extravagant garments. Although she is sometimes depicted wearing a nun’s habit, she appears like a contemporary of her viewers, rather than a historical figure from the fourth century. Moreover, her prison cell does not look intimidating, but rather appears comfortable, well decorated, and in many cases, unlocked. Several images even present her in a pastoral outdoor setting. According to the hagiographies, the dragon vanished as Margaret burst out of it, or when she made the sign of the cross. In some variations, a white dove appears in the prison cell at that moment. The images, however, present the dragon as very much alive; moreover, the dangerous wild beast is tamed and harnessed to the will of the saint. Male saints sometimes pamper wild animals, as in the case of Saint Jerome with his lion;52 Saint Simeon Stylites with a dragon which he caused to repent; and Saint Sylvester, also portrayed with a dragon.53 In one variation of the Saint George legend, the princess leads the dragon, leashed by her girdle, into town.54 The visual iconography representing Saint Margaret’s close relationship with the dragon, which shares her spiritual mood and is physically joined to her, was thus highly objectionable to the male clergy: the dualist attitude of late medieval and early modern thought could not accept the double meaning that imbued such 52 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: 146.597–602. 53 Ibid., 12: 62–71; Lippincott, “The Unnatural History of Dragons,” pp. 8–15; Kaftal, Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting, pp. 521–534; Eugene F. Rice, Saint Jerome in the Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), pp. 44–45; “Jerome, St,” in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 731–732. 54 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: 58.239–240.

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images of Saint Margaret as a virgin dragon-tamer, particularly in the context of the formulas used to represent female saints. The rise of new female saints accompanied by dragons, such as Saint Umiliana de Cerchi and Saint Verdiana, as well as Saint Benevanuta of Friuli and Saint Martha,55 further contributes to the hypothesis of internalized ancient concepts that persisted in folk beliefs and rituals, which were opposed by the clergy. One example that strongly supports this hypothesis concerning the ancient roots of Saint Margaret’s iconography and of her appeal to women is the transcript of the trial of Joan of Arc. Joan claimed in her statement that Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine whispered to her, inspiring her heretical actions.56 The clerk responded that he knew of a heretical female ritual performed in her homeland that involved women worshipping trees, and contended that Joan was confused between the adoration of Saint Margaret and that pagan ritual. Although it may initially appear unclear why the inquisition would associate the mention of Saint Margaret with heretical tree-worshiping rituals, it seems that the ancient visual connection between trees, virginal maidens and dragons, as elaborated throughout this book, and between the cult of Saint Margaret, was familiar to the inquisition clerk. The powerful image of the female saint overpowering the dragon by collaborating with it rather than killing it was also highly problematic for church authorities, as Jocelyn G. Price notes, since it presented a female saint with the prized and extremely powerful ability to perform a summoning and an exorcism, an ability reserved almost exclusively for holy male protagonists. Price notes that according to Church clerics, such a power should not have been within the capability of any female, including a saint. Yet the image of the female saint performing what was impossible for a woman – a dragon summoning, teaming, and exorcism – continued to appear in visual representations. The collision between pagan folk beliefs and Christian theology explains the disturbing and enigmatic aspects of this saint, as well as the dissonance between her written hagiography and visual images. As this analysis reveals, Saint Margaret embodies a syncretic consolidation of two opposing belief systems, born of the association between the saint and the motif of the woman and the dragon, which was particularly important due to this motif’s close connection with childbirth rituals.57 55 Mrs Gutch, “Saint Martha and the Dragon,” Folklore, 63.4 (December 1952), pp. 193–203; Colafranceschi, “Marta di Betania, Santa,” in Bibliotheca sanctorum, VIII, pp. 1204–1217; Petroff, Body and Soul, pp. 97–109. 56 For references concerning the inquiry of Joan of Arc, see Procès de condemnation de Jeanne d’Arc, eds. Pierre Tisset and Yvonne Lanhers (Paris: Klincksieck, 1960–1971): 3.296–307. Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, p. 235. 57 On the problem of syncretism, see Anita M. Leopold and Jeppe S. Jensen, eds., Syncretism in Religion: A Reader (London: Routledge, 2014).

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The Role of Saint Margaret in Childbirth Rituals In order to fully understand the visual iconography of Saint Margaret, the role and function of her cult need to be included in this discussion. Saint Margaret’s cult, which flourished in Western Europe from the ninth to the fifteenth century, attracted mostly women, especially during pregnancy, childbirth, and the raising of infants and children. From the earliest representations of her Passion, Margaret was associated with childbirth and the protection of children. As noted, her Passion relates that before she was beheaded, she urged women in childbirth to read her legenda in order to protect their children from illness and disabilities. As Price rightly argues, this allusion to her power to heal through exorcism is one of the central parallels between the Passion of Saint Margaret and that of Christ himself.58 Yet Price also notes that whereas holy men were assumed to be able to perform the highly sophisticated magical act of summoning, or materializing things envisioned in their imagination, holy women were presumed to be incapable of attaining the required spiritual level to perform such acts, even if they were saints. What, then, were the powers that enabled Saint Margaret to perform magical acts typically gendered as masculine?59 As the following discussion will demonstrate, these powers, which enabled Saint Margaret to perform such high-level magic, and to endure so resolutely, were inherited by her through her association with the motif of the woman and the dragon. Images of Saint Margaret have been discovered across Europe on belt buckles and pilgrimage badges, illustrated girdles (such as the 1450 birth-girdle scroll MS M.779 fol. 1r, and the 1491 birth girdle scroll MS M.1092 fol. 1r, both in the Morgan Library and Museum); Books of Hours with miniature codices bearing illustrations and written legends of Saint Margaret; and amulets (such as the Cuir ciselè case M1092 in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York). Scholars agree that during childbirth rituals, they were worn around or on the pregnant woman’s belly, with 58 There are several examples from the New Testament in which Christ performs an exorcism to cure an illness that was presumed to be inflicted by demons. See Mark 1:23–26, 1:32–34, 5:1–20, 9:17–29; Matthew 15:22–28; Luke 13:11–13. 59 Price, “The Virgin and the Dragon”; W. Larson, “The Role of Patronage and Audience in the Cults of Sts. Margaret and Marina of Antioch,” in Gender and Holiness, eds. Riches and Salih, p. 26; Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon, p. 16. For general information about exorcism and demonology, see Caesarius, “De daemonibus,” in Dialogus miraculorum Teilbd, ed. and trans. Josef Strange (Ridgewood, NJ: Gregg Press, 1966), I/5; St Elmo Nauman, ed., Exorcism through the Ages (New York: Philosophical Library, 1974); Sarah Ferber, Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern France (London: Routledge, 2004); Brian P. Levack, The Devil Within: Possession and Exorcism in the Christian West (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013); Montague Summers, The History of Witchcraft and Demonology (Hoboken: Taylor and Francis, 2014); Francis Young, A History of Exorcism in Catholic Christianity (Cham: Springer International; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).

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the words and images facing inward toward the belly itself, and were also placed next to newborn infants.60 Little is known about the actual childbirth ceremony, although it is relatively clear that the legenda of Saint Margaret was read to or by a woman in labor in response to the saint’s call to do so in her hagiographies.61 This exhortation is present in the Legenda Aurea,62 as well as in other sources, such as codex AD from Tuscany, now in the National Library, Brera, Italy, in which Margaret prays for Christ to grant her story the following powers: Another favor I want to ask of you And beg you to fulfill, Is that the woman suffering in labor, And in this Passion she is sustaining Struggling to persevere, May you help her in her throes, so that the newborn creature will not be sick, and not born in a bad way.63

Indeed, following the saint’s call for pregnant and laboring women to read her legenda, Anthonius Guainerius – a university professor in Padua – recommended in his Tractatus de matricibus that a woman should recite Saint Margaret’s legenda during childbirth. Helen. R. Lemay and Jacqueline M. Musacchio both claim that the custom was encouraged by midwives.64 60 Walter J. Dilling, “Girdles: Their Origin and Development Particularly with Regard to Their Use as Charms in Medicine, Marriage and Midwifery,” Caledonian Medical Journal, 9 (1912–1914), pp. 337–423; Albert, “La lègende de Sainte Marguerite,” p. 24, n. 14; Jacqueline M. Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth in Renaissance Italy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), pp. 141–144; Don C. Skemer, Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 2006), pp. 239–250; Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, pp. 508, 512–513; Jenny C. Bledsoe, “Practical Hagiography: James of Voragine’s Sermones and Vita on St. Margaret of Antioch,” Medieval Sermon Studies, 57.1 (2013), pp. 29–48; Mary Morse, “Alongside St. Margaret: The Childbirth Cult of Saints Quiricus and Julitta in Late Medieval English Manuscripts,” in Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, 1350–1550: Packaging, Presentation and Consumption, eds. Emma Cayley and Susan Powell (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013), pp. 187–206, particularly pp. 187–188, 193–194, 201–203, nn. 38–40. 61 Albert, “La lègende de Sainte Marguerite,” pp. 19–31; Bledsoe, “Practical Hagiography,” pp. 29–48. 62 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: 93.368–370. 63 Foligno, “An Italian Version of the Legend of St. Margaret,” p. 65: National Library, Brera, Italy, cod. AD: 16.20.681–688: “Un’ altra gratia voglio (vi) domandare / Qual ti prieco vogli exaldire, / Che la donna chi à / nel parto penare, / E questa passione vorà aldire / O sopra sè la vorà conservare, / Che tu la soccorri in li suoi martiri, / Nen gli nasca creatura sidrata, / Nen di brutta nascenza fistulata.” I thank Anastazja Buttitta for assisting in the translation of this piece. 64 Helen R. Lemay, “Anthonius Guainerius and Medieval Gynecology,” in Women of the Medieval World: Essays in Honor of John H. Mundy, eds. Julius Kirshner and Suzanne F. Wemple (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985),

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Jacqueline Marie Musacchio’s Art, Marriage and Family in the Florentine Renaissance Palace differentiates between Italian belts called chiavacuore, which were often placed on brides and newlyweds, and girdles called guardacuore, which were placed over the bellies of pregnant women to ensure fertility, and around the bellies of women in labor; this was the continuation of an ancient tradition, which supposedly originated in the myth of Venus as recounted in Homer’s Iliad.65 The girdle functioned as a protective amulet for the most important female organ – the womb. Saint Margaret herself had several relic belts that were worshipped throughout Europe.66 In this context, the images and written story of Saint Margaret therefore had a practical, cultic function. There is documentation of relics of Saint Margaret being taken from their reliquarium in churches and brought to the houses of pregnant noblewomen during or after childbirth, such as was presumed by Ross and Downey to have happened with the Reliquary of the Hand of Saint Marina, which was probably originally from Constantinople, now in the Museo Correr, Venice.67 This practice was particularly common in Italy: two Books of Hours (BL Egerton, MS. 877, fol. 11v; Princeton Art Museum, MS. 52–57, fol. 20r) and one of the life-cycle paintings from the Vanni Altarpiece (fig. 50) portray the healing powers of Saint Margaret’s relics. The image of Saint Margaret sometimes decorated the bed in which a woman gave birth, as demonstrated in Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait.68 Reinforcing this idea is the eventual placement of the Portinari Altarpiece in a hospital, due to Saint Margaret’s importance in the procedure of childbirth, though it was probably not intended for this location in the first place. Relic belts of Saint Margaret were also at the center of festive celebrations, in which pregnant women gathered around the churches containing her relics and lit candles according to the stage of their pregnancy.69 pp. 317–136; Helen R. Lemay, “Women and the Literature of Obstetrics and Gynecology,” in Medieval Women and the Sources of Medieval History, ed. Joel T. Rosenthal (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1990), pp. 189–209, particularly p. 197; Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth, p. 142. 65 Homer, The Iliad, trans. A.T. Murray, doctoral dissertation (Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924): 14.214–223. Jacqueline M. Musacchio, Art, Marriage, and Family in the Florentine Renaissance Palace (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), pp. 168–174. 66 Dilling, “Girdles,” p. 347; Ginevra Niccolini di Camugliano, The Chronicles of a Florentine Family, 1200–1470 (London: J. Cape, 1933), p. 112; Rèau, L’iconographie de l’art chrètien, III/2, p. 880; Jacqueline Herald, Renaissance Dress in Italy, 1400–1500 (London: Bell and Hyman, 1981), p. 28; Albert, “La lègende de Sainte Marguerite,” p. 24, n. 14; Gilbertson, “The Vanni Altarpice and the Relic Cult of Saint Margaret,” p. 180. 67 M. C. Ross and Downey, “A Reliquary of St Marina”; Hahn, “The Voices of the Saints,” pp. 20–31; Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, pp. 309–310; Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon, p. 14; Cynthia Hahn, The Reliquary Effect: Enshrining the Sacred Object (London: Reaktion Books, 2017), p. 59. 68 Jan van Eyck’s renowned painting the Arnolfini Portrait depicts a wooden statue of Saint Margaret on the bed behind the bride’s head; see W. Larson, “The Role of Patronage and Audience in the Cults of Sts. Margaret and Marina of Antioch,” in Gender and Holiness, eds. Riches and Salih, p. 30. 69 Dilling, “Girdles”; Rèau, L’iconographie de l’art chrètien, III/2, p. 880; Albert, “La lègende de Sainte Marguerite,” p. 24, n. 14; M. C. Ross and Downey, “A Reliquary of St Marina”; Jane T. Schulenburg, Forgetful

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Such childbirth rituals were decried by clerical authorities as superstitions with pagan undertones, and were stereotypically attributed to “old women” (hence “witches”) of the lower classes.70 Yet documents show that the upper classes, including royalty, were faithful consumers of these rituals and superstition-laden artifacts, as evidenced by several mentions of Saint Margaret’s artifacts in connection with fertility and infant protection. Tribaldo de Rossi purchased a manuscript containing images of Saint Margaret two weeks after his wife gave birth.71 The childless woman Margarite Dantini received instructions from her sister to wear a special fertility belt around her belly, which should be placed there by a virgin boy. It was specified that the inscription should face her belly, and certain prayers were to accompany the act of its placement. Significantly, Dantini’s brother-in-law wrote to her husband to express his lack of belief in such acts.72 Don C. Skemer’s Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages, presents an example of a capsa – a small box whose cover bore an image of Saint Margaret, and which contained a tiny text amulet with Saint Margaret’s Life. Skemer lists a vast number of pregnancy amulets and even pregnancy kits – several objects bound together and used during childbirth – which were adorned with Saint Margaret’s legends and images. He stresses the ritualistic usage of items emblazoned with such images during childbirth, pregnancy, and the postpartum period. These examples represent Saint Margaret both textually and visually, stressing her importance to the rituals of childbirth and infant protection. The small size of these objects suggests that they were to be placed on the body in order to harness the protective powers of the words and images. Since the letters are too small to be read, the words must have had a different, magical purpose.73 Midwifery was a lucrative business for middle- and lower-class widows, particularly those with children. Midwives, stereotypically labeled as “old witches,” were of Their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society, ca. 500–1100 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 55, 228–230; Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth, pp. 141–144; Gilbertson, “The Vanni Altarpiece and the Relic Cult of Saint Margaret,” pp. 180–187; Skemer, Binding Words, pp. 239–250; Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, pp. 309–310, 508, 512–513; M. Morse, “Alongside St Margaret,” 187–188, 193–194, 201–203, nn. 38–40; Bledsoe, “Practical Hagiography,” pp. 29–48; Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon 2016, p. 14. 70 Michael D. Bailey, “From Sorcery to Witchcraft: Clerical Conceptions of Magic in the Later Middle Ages,” Speculum, 76.4 (October 2001), pp. 960–990; Nancy Caciola, Discerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006), pp. 95–96; Skemer, Binding Words, pp. 235–236, n. 1. 71 Fondo Nazionale, Biblioteca Nationale Centrale (Florence), II, II, p. 357, 115v. Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth, pp. 141–144. 72 Archivi Dantini (Archivio di Stato, Prato): 1103. Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth, p. 142, also n. 74. 73 Skemer, Binding Words, pp. 158–159, 186–187, 239–250. An example of a miniature codex is in the Princeton University Art Museum: y1952–56, y1952–57. Adelaide Bennett, Jean F. Preston and William P Stoneman, A Summary Guide to Western Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at Princeton University (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Library, 1991), pp. 23–24, nn. 65, 66.

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often summoned to upper-class homes during childbirth. They came equipped with popular beliefs and superstitions, as well as with childbirth kits containing various artifacts.74 Jewish midwives, for instance, carried with them a case filled with magic bowls, amulets, and other magical artifacts, which were believed to make the house impenetrable to demons. Immediately upon entering the home of a woman in labor, they would also perform rituals of purification and exorcism in order to prevent demons from entering the house. Numerous artifacts, including the capsa described by Skemer, indicate that similar rituals were performed by Christian midwives.75 In the cosmology of the childbirth rituals in medieval and early modern Western Europe, the woman’s belly was viewed as a conduit opening onto other dimensions – and thus facilitating the arrival not only of a baby, but also of demons. This is the reason that the woman’s belly was wrapped, so that the passageway (the vagina) would selectively allow for the arrival of the baby, while blocking the passage of demons. As the above-mentioned artifacts reveal, folk beliefs regarding childbirth thus posited the woman’s vagina and belly as liminal locations where the struggle with demons took place. The woman’s belly was therefore wrapped so that the demons would be prevented from exiting the womb. A further exploration of demonology is thus necessary in order to more deeply understand Margaret’s role in childbirth, and the reasons why this particular female rite was protected by a virgin martyr. Significantly, the Christian Church did not consider demons to be the product of superstitious beliefs, but rather viewed them as messengers of the devil, described in the New Testament in the scenes of Christ’s Descent to Hell and of the Day of Judgment.76 Since demons were believed to be the reason for diseases and deformities, Christ’s acts of healing were viewed as exorcisms.77 As noted earlier, the scene portraying Saint Margaret’s encounter with 74 Dilling, “Girdles”; Forbes, The Midwife and the Witch; Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth, pp. 13–15. 75 Dorit Rosenzweig, Lilith, a Demon with a Borderline Personality Disorder: The First 1000 Years of Jewish Lilith (Tel Aviv: DoLa Publishing, 2010), pp. 175–191 (in Hebrew); Naama Vilozny, Lilith’s Hair and Ashmodai’s Horns: Figure and Shape in Magic and Folk Art; Between Babylon to the Land of Israel in Late Antiquity (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 2017), pp. 151–161, 165–198 (in Hebrew). 76 Peter 3:19–20; Revelations 20:11–12, Mark 1:23, 1:32, 5:1–20, 9:17–29; Matthew 15:22–28; Luke 13:11–13; John 4:4; Timothy 4:1; James 2:19, Acts 5:12–13, 6:5, 8:6–8, 13:6–12, 16:16–18, 19:10–20. Acts: 16:16–18. The story in Acts: 16:16–18 is fascinating in the context of the current discussion, as it describes a woman who is possessed by a python. Also see Alice K. Turner, The History of Hell (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993), pp. 52–113; Ladner, God, Cosmos, and Humankind, pp. 45–50. 77 See note 58. Caesarius, De daemonibus; Nauman, Exorcism through the Ages; Price, “The Virgin and the Dragon”; Ferber, Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern France; Levack, The Devil Within, pp. 95–110; Summers, The History of Witchcraft and Demonology; Young, A History of Exorcism in Catholic Christianity. A fascinating discussion of this theme is presented in Herbert L. Kessler, “Christ the Magic

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the demon thus has much information to offer on demonology and the history of exorcism; in most cases, the demon tells Margaret the story of King Solomon, who captured demons and made them build the Temple, but who was later tempted to sin. The seal containing the demons was then broken by a greedy mass, and the demons escaped. Dresvina points to the analogy between Margaret and Solomon in this story, in which Margaret succeeds where Solomon failed.78 Saint Margaret is also likened in her legend to Jesus himself (Imitatio Christi), and – as mentioned above – her being swallowed by the dragon and then bursting out of it is seen as an analogy to Jesus’ descent into hell; similarly, her boiling bath torment is related to the baptism, and in several variations Margaret even sees the dove of the Holy Spirit. The most important similarities between Margaret and Jesus in the context of the current discussion, however, is their power to heal and exorcise.79 In the Gospels, Jesus moves between worlds, healing individuals and communities and performing exorcisms.80 Similarly, Margaret performs two kinds of exorcism in her legenda, and exhorts women to turn to her for the protection of children and infants; in this sense, she was considered an exorcist of fertility demons. A discussion of Saint Margaret’s role in rituals of childbirth cannot be complete without reference to the Virgin Mary, the most salient and important figure in childbirth rituals. The Mother of Christ, whose cult flourished in medieval and early modern Europe, was considered the ultimate mother, with an immaculate conception and a painless birth. As such, she was the most popular and desirable figure to assist in childbirth, and a role model for pregnant women.81 Paintings and artifacts of the Madonna, such as Piero della Francesca’s Madonna del Parto, became devotional images for pregnant women. Domestic objects bearing images of Mary included girdles and relic belts, and many other related artifacts and prayers were used in childbirth rituals.82 Why, then, would it be necessary to invoke an Dragon,” in “Making Thoughts, Making Pictures, Making Memories: A Special Issue in Honor of Mary J. Carruthers,” special issue, Gesta, 48.2 (2009), pp. 119–134. 78 Dresvina, A Maid with a Dragon, pp. 158–172. 79 Price, “The Virgin and the Dragon”; Albert, “La lègende de Sainte Marguerite,” pp. 23–25; E. M. Ross, The Grief of God, pp. 98–104; Pearce, “The Cult of St Margaret of Antioch,” p. 78; W. Larson, “The Role of Patronage and Audience in the Cults of Sts. Margaret and Marina of Antioch,” in Gender and Holiness, eds. Riches and Salih, p. 26. 80 Mark 1:23–26, 1:32–34, 5:1–20, 9:17–29; Matthew: 15:22–28; Luke: 13:11–13. 81 Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth, pp. 143–157, which also contains a discussion of other birth iconographies such as the birth of the virgin and the birth of Saint John the Baptist, among others. 82 Adolphe Lecocq, “Recherches sur les enseignes de pèlerinages et les chemisettes de Notre Dame de Chartres,” Mèmoires de la Sociètè archèologique d’Eure-et-Loir, 6 (1874), pp. 194–224; Brendan Cassidy, “A Relic, Some Pictures and the Mothers of Florence in the Late Fourteenth Century,” Gesta, 30.2 (1991), pp. 91–99; Katherine T. Brown, Mary of Mercy in Medieval and Renaissance Italian Art: Devotional Image and Civic Emblem (London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 58–94, particularly 83–84.

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additional female saint, and especially a virgin martyr who knew nothing about conception, and in fact refused to become pregnant? The symbolic association between Saint Margaret and childbirth is analyzed in Jean-Pierre Albert’s article “La lègende de Sainte Marguerite: Un mythe maïeutique,” which offers a structural analysis of the story of Saint Margaret emerging from inside the dragon, and of the pearl being extracted from its shell, as both being symbolically associated with childbirth and the extraction of the baby from its mother’s belly. In this context, Albert also analyzes the unease that Jacobus de Voragines demonstrated in the Golden Legend in describing the most frequently depicted image of the saint emerging from within the dragon, and the saint’s role as a protector of childbirth.83 As the previous chapters have demonstrated, the woman and the dragon, which already appeared in ancient Egyptian images of Wadjet, and Greek images of Medusa and Andromeda, evolved into Greco-Roman images of Medea, Ceres, and Lamia, and later into Christian images of Eve and Lilith. Throughout this genealogy of images, childbirth and fertility are associated with the union between women and dragons, as given expression in anguiped/dracontopede images that were related to both malicious and benevolent powers. This context is crucial to understanding why the union between Saint Margaret and the dragon was associated with the power to exorcise evil and to ward off Lilith and other malevolent she-demons, who were similarly associated with serpents in the context of fertility and childbirth. As I suggest, such beliefs and rituals concerning childbirth, which were eradicated from the textual description of Saint Margaret’s life, persisted in visual representations, rooted as they were in a psychological need for apotropaic protection from the demon Lilith and her ilk. The visual images of the saint thus served to resolve the dissonance between the Christian aspiration to eliminate manifestations of pagan beliefs during one of the most commonly feared (and fatal) moments of a woman’s life, and between the need to reach for ancient patterns of assistance.84 I suggest that the reading of the legend as a magical incantation served as an enchantment speech,85 which was intended to focus the laboring woman’s attention on a vocal narrative, providing her with a mythical heroine as a role model. The visual image of Saint Margaret was shown to women in labor for the same purpose: the pain of childbirth was seen as analogous to the dragon, and the message transmitted by such images was that the woman should not fight her pain but rather accept it and collaborate with it. 83 Albert, “La lègende de Sainte Marguerite,” pp. 19–31. 84 Gilbertson, “Imaging Saint Margaret,” p. 123, also n. 28; Yuval-Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (New York: Harper Perennial, 2018), pp. 274–275. 85 Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, trans. Claire Jacobson and Broole Grundfest Schoepf (New York: Basic, 1963–1983), pp. 186–205.

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Musacchio’s discussion of literary, visual and mental images as a meditativemagical means for reassuring and comforting women in labor stresses the importance of this tool in achieving a sense of control, due to the late medieval and early modern belief in the magical power of images and the imagination and in their ability to affect reality.86 Price also attends to the power of Saint Margaret’s own imagination, which allowed her to conjure up the dragon in her cell.87 The saint is both a protective figure and a fertility symbol, whose thoughts have the power to create alternate realities and to destroy evil. She is therefore the perfect role model for women on their journey through childbirth, helping them to imagine a good ending and even transforming their experience into a cosmological event that enables them to join the saint in combating evil demons. The newborn baby was typically named after a specific saint who was considered to have assisted in the birth, and who was desired as a protector and patron for the child throughout its life. Therefore, naming a baby girl “Margaret” was an expression of thanks to the saint for her assistance in the safe birth and protection of the infant.88 A woman given the name Margaret, or a woman with a close relative by that name, who read Saint Margaret’s story during her labor, would, I suggest, feel a special kinship with the saint. The examination of rituals centered on images of Saint Margaret casts further light on this saint’s disturbing power not only for the Catholic Church, but also for the newly emerging field of modern medicine, pointing to the tension between male scholars trained in universities, and the midwives traditionally relied upon to deliver babies.89 This tension pitted practical female experience against the domain of male scientific knowledge, leading medical authorities, in their attempt to contain control over childbirth, to join the Church’s attack on the pagan character of these images and their symbolism. This chapter examined several iconographic types traditionally featured in representations of Saint Margaret and the dragon, which remained fairly consistent and stable from the thirteenth century throughout the fifteenth century. This iconography, as I have argued, encapsulates ancient traditions and folk rituals that persisted from antiquity to the early modern period, acting as an apotropaic tool against she-demons that threatened childbirth, fertility, and infants, as well as guiding the actions of women in labor. Although its pagan origins and associations 86 Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth, pp. 125–148. 87 Price, “The Virgin and the Dragon”; Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth, pp. 128–130. 88 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, pp. 96, 459–470. 89 Forbes, The Midwife and the Witch, pp. 88–89; Peter Burke, The Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy: Essays on Perception and Communication (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 122; Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth, p. 142; Lucille B. Pinto, “The Folk Practice of Gynecology and Obstetrics in the Middle Ages,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 47.5 (September 1973), pp. 513–523.

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with folk culture led to attempts to eradicate this motif from the written narratives of Margaret’s life, it persisted in visual images of the saint that were widely distributed throughout Western Europe in the twelfth–sixteenth centuries, parallel to the expansion of her cult. This saint’s image was probably initially invented as a bridge between pagan and Christian beliefs. The underlying friction between church clerics and artists concerning depictions of Margaret can thus be understood as a sign of the anxiety awakened in the Christian establishment by themes carrying pagan, folkloric undertones, and more specifically with ones concerning extraordinary female powers, while underscoring the stability and consistency of the woman and the dragon motif in Western European cultures from the Greco-Roman period to early modernity.

Conclusion This study set out to explore the motif of the woman and the dragon, while differentiating it from that of the male dragon-slayer and establishing it as a related yet distinct constellation of signs and meanings. It was motivated by an understanding that an in-depth exploration of images and texts concerned with women and dragons should focus on an epistemological examination of the distinct aspects of such relationships, rather than relying on the common presumption that the characteristics defining images of male figures with dragons are equally applicable to representations centered on women. As the discussion unfolding throughout has revealed, women rarely fight dragons. Rather, women communicate and collaborate with dragons, fusing with them or are equated with them. The book has followed this motif as it evolved from the Greco-Roman era to medieval and early modern Europe, while foraying beyond these geographical boundaries to explore related examples from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Indeed, further research may reveal this motif to constitute an archetype relevant to even more remote cultures. The analysis of this motif’s development, while relying heavily on literary sources, centered on visual representations, which have demonstrated a stronger hold in folk and popular traditions, and have lent themselves to the simultaneous manifestation of competing belief systems. The complex charge of these mythical images sheds light on the different cultural contexts in which they were created, as small visual details shed light on complex constellations of meaning, which are woven together into a rich tapestry of knowledge. In the words of the art historian Aby Warburg, “God is in the details.”1 The analysis of the vast amount of visual material examined in this book highlights both the consistent elements of this motif as they persisted over time, as well as the changes and anomalies occurring in the context of different historical and sociocultural contexts, and the individual signs of which the motif is composed. As elaborated in Chapter One, dragon imagery arose out of ancient perceptions of snakes as the great adversary – the opponent that must be defeated by a god, king, 1 Aby Warburg, Ausgewählte Schriften und Würdigungen, ed. Dieter Wuttke (Baden-Baden: Verlag V. Koerner, 1980), pp. 601–602: “Nachwort des Herausgebers.”

Khalifa-Gueta, S., The Woman and the Dragon in Premodern Art. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023. doi 10.5117/9789463723572_con

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or hero in order to establish his authority and his right to rule or lead. However, this book demonstrated that mythical dragons in antiquity – while almost always doomed to die or be defeated – were not necessarily considered evil or malicious, but were simply characterized as having a different nature or different agenda than the male protagonist. At the same time, the emphasis on beliefs concerning the protective, apotropaic, and beneficial qualities of dragons explains their enduring power even following the rise of Christianity, while coming to be negatively associated by the Church with paganism and folklore. Further study of dragon imagery both within the temporal and geographical framework of this study and beyond it is required. The overall visual concepts discussed throughout the current study are particularly relevant for examining the reception and transformation of dragon imagery in early modern and modern art.2 In Chapter Two, Three and Four, the motif of the woman and the dragon is examined in terms of its structure, which encompasses three types of women, who entertain different relationships with dragons: the holy woman, the good woman and the holy-defiled woman, also referred to as the bad or dangerous woman. Chapter Two analyzed the first type, which is bound by a sacred bond with a dead or living dragon that communicates to her knowledge and prophesies from other spheres, usually but not solely from the realm of the dead. This chapter suggested that the Pythia priestess of Apollo’s Delphic Temple communicated the prophecies emanated to her by the dead Python. These prophecies were given in the Temple of Apollo, which was built on the site of an older temple to a Great Goddess, to whom the transfer of prophetic knowledge was related. The relationship between fertility goddesses and dragons was also demonstrated in the analysis of the Cadmos myth and its various signs, followed by the suggestion that the female figure seated on Drakōn, as presented in the Cassel Painter’s bell-krater painting (fig. 8), is a cave or spring oracle. Goddesses including the Egyptian Wadget and Hathor and the Greco-Roman Gaya, were also included in this discussion, since they were thought to have emissarial relations with dragons or to have metamorphosed into dragons. This chapter constitutes the first aim of this study – that of pursuing a feminist concern with overlooked matriarchal and feminine language, as represented in the work of Gimbutas and Kristeva, and in Hélène Cixous’ manifesto The Laughter of the Medusa.3 2 See for example my articles Sharon Khalifa-Gueta, “Leonardo’s Dragons – The ‘Rider Fighting a Dragon’ Sketch as an Allegory of Leonardo’s Concept of Knowledge,” Explorations in Renaissance Culture, 44.1 (Spring 2018), pp. 104–139; Sharon Khalifa-Gueta, “Mother of Dragons,” in Pre-Modern “Pop Cultures”? Images and Objects Around the Mediterranean (350–1918 CE), eds. Ivan Foletti, Adrien Palladino and Zuzana Frantová. Monographic Issue, Eikón Imago, 11 (2022), pp. 79–92. 3 Hélène Cixous, “Le Rire de la Méduse,” L’arc, 61 (1975), pp. 39–54; Marija Gimbutas, The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, 6500–3500 B.C. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982); Julia Kristeva,

Conclusion 

As I suggested, the myths examined in this chapter encode patriarchal unease over the ability of women to conceive and give birth and the masculine aspiration to supplant this generative power, and attempt to reconcile this resulting tension. This understanding led to the conclusion that a dragon-slayer event was a fight against the earth and nature and against the great fertility goddess who was synonymous with the earth, and who metamorphosed into a dragon. As this chapter revealed, the motif in question centers on the holy union between a woman and a dragon, which serves as the basis for the different types discussed throughout the book. An essential aspect of this union is the holy woman’s virginity, and her transformation into “the bride of death” through her collaboration with a dragon. As noted, historical documentation of socio-religious rituals related to this motif highlights its anthropological importance in the Greco-Roman context, while underscoring the centrality of the theme of fertility and the relationship between humans and the land. Chapter Two also examined the accompanying sign of the cave, which symbolizes not only the habitat of the dragon but also its ability to move between the sphere of the living and the realm of the dead, as well as the great womb. Taken together, these signs form an allegorical system, a triad in which the Great Mother goddess, the cave and the dragon become interchangeable. In Chapter Three, the holy union between the woman and the dragon was further elaborated through an examination of the myth of Perseus. In this myth, the type I define as the “good woman,” represented by Andromeda, is the bride of death with whom the dragon strives to unite. A worthy man, as exemplified by Perseus, can sever this union in order to win the woman. As I suggested, this second type and the theme of the bride of death symbolically represent the Greco-Roman marriage ritual. This ritual compelled a bride to be separated from her former identity and to take on a new role in her husband’s household, thus entering a liminal realm represented by the positioning of the mythological Andromeda on the borderline between the world of the living and the world of the dead. This chapter also attended to the third type partaking of the motif of the woman and the dragon, the holy-defiled woman, as represented by Medusa. This type of woman was originally engaged in a holy union with a dragon, which was defiled by a sexual act imposed on her by a god, so that she subsequently came to be viewed as destructive and dangerous. Medusa, as this discussion demonstrated, represents the residual powers of a great female goddess, who was literarily petrifying to patriarchal cultures, and therefore had to be symbolically subdued and brought under masculine Powers of Horror (Columbia; Princeton: University Presses of California, 1982); Julia Kristeva and Arthur Goldhammer, “Stabat mater,” Poetics Today, 6.1/2 (1985), pp. 133–152; Marija Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess (London: Thames and Hudson, 1989).

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control. Additionally, this mythic narrative and its visual representations served to educate men concerning the qualities of an eligible wife, as well as concerning the dangers inherent to contact with problematic, overly powerful women. The contrast between these two types – the good woman and the holy-defiled woman – points to the two poles of the same axis, while extending the range of meanings embedded in the motif and the various angles from which it can be approached. This epistemological investigation thus sheds light on the relationship between the role of women in dragon-slayer stories and the patriarchal revulsion towards the seemingly monstrous union of a woman and a dragon, a union that had been viewed as both valid and positive in different periods and cultural contexts. Chapter Four, which centered on the figure of Medea, further elaborated upon the complexity of the motif of the woman and the dragon, and in particular upon the binary representation of the holy-defiled type. As this chapter suggested, attending to the many myths concerning Medea, as they were formulated in different locations and during different periods, suggests that she once served a holy dragon with benevolent qualities, but that her betrayal of it and of her father’s household, and her sexual union with a man, rendered these qualities dangerous and destructive. As such, Medea becomes the prototype of the female witch – cunning, murderous, raging and uncontrollable – a woman with “serpents in the soul.” As I argued, this biased portrayal served an emblem of women in exceptional positions of power in a patriarchal social context. The myth of Medea was also shown to further illuminate the symbolic function of the tree, which recurs in diverse mythological narratives of women and dragons as yet another symbol of the great fertility goddess. The serpent guards the tree bearing the golden treasure, which demarcates the liminal location between the world of the living and the world of the dead and thus represents salvation. The holiness of Medea, as a mistress of the dragon, was enhanced by the similarities between her Colchis iconography and the iconography of the Hesperides, stressing her role in the development of the theme of salvation over time. This chapter also demonstrated how Medea’s visual imagery developed, particularly on fourth-century sarcophagi, coming to symbolize salvation and apotheosis, as well as protection over children and infants. Medea’s image is thus imbued with binary and conflicting meanings, pertaining to both beneficence and malice. This conceptualization of a mythical figure defined by opposing aspects is unique to the ancient Greco-Roman cultures, and was later eradicated by the dualistic paradigm of Christian theology. However, as I have shown, it is still possible to trace such complexity in images of Saint Margaret, which admit both Christian theology and pagan-folk concepts. Medea’s figure stresses the conceptual interchangeability of the woman and the dragon, casting both the powerful woman, or witch, and the dragon as the enemies of patriarchy. Thus, in late antiquity and the early medieval

Conclusion 

period, images of an equestrian male hero attacking a dragon, are supplemented by ones in which the same type of hero attacks a she-demon. Following the examination of the motif of the woman and the dragon in ancient Greco-Roman and Mediterranean cultures, the last two chapters charted its development in medieval and early modern Western Europe, as well as its binary split into positive and negative characteristics. Chapter Five centered on the three Great Mothers of the Judeo-Christian world – Eve, Lilith and Mary, transferring the pagan meanings of the motif into Christianity. This chapter maps the endurance of a non-adversarial visual union between women and dragons that is based on communication and mimicry, and which continues to encapsulate the themes of marriage and childbirth, protection, salvation, and liminality. As this chapter demonstrated, the knowledge held by the serpent was communicated to Eve, herself a serpent and the representative of all women, by means of a fruit. The mother of humanity was granted the gift of fertility and the curse of mortality in a visual and textual narrative that is closely linked to those of Medea and the Hesperides. Patterns of meaning thus emerged from the similarities between the iconographies of the Hesperides, the cave oracle and Eve. The mother of demons, Lilith, and her ilk are similarly anguiped figures, and can also be related to the figure of Medusa, whereas Mary, who is portrayed trampling the serpent, represents the dualistic structure of this motif as it was reinterpreted in a Christian context. Despite their differences, these three Great Mothers are all linked through the themes of fertility and childbirth: Eve is granted the gift of human fertility, Lilith embodied the threat to fertility, and Mary is protective of childbirth and infants, while embodying the hope for humanity’s salvation. This chapter demonstrates how this motif was transformed over time parallel to the rise of misogynistic attitudes toward women in Western cultures. Chapter Six explored the iconography of Saint Margaret as existing in an inverse relationship to that of Lilith and other she-demons. As this chapter demonstrated, the anguiform Christian saint emerging from the dragon’s body, functioned as an apotropaic means of protection against malevolent anguiped she-demons, capable of endangering childbirth, infants and fertility. The analysis of her iconography underscored the endurance of the union between a holy woman and a dragon, while explaining the gap between her visual and her textual portrayal. As I have shown, this iconography followed patterns and models that flourished throughout Western Europe, and which were rife with contradictions and powerful symbols, while being related to the emergence of additional female saints associated with dragons. This chapter demonstrated that the function of this saint in childbirth rituals and the protection of infants was at the core of her visual images, which offered guidance and comfort to women in labor while alluding to ancient images of great goddesses associated with fertility and with dragons. This chapter sought

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to demonstrate the preservation of matriarchal concepts in a particularly feminine pararitual, and calls for further examination of the power struggle between this feminine life event and masculine institutions. This book has sought to offer a novel approach to representations of women with dragons as they have endured over close to three millennia, while shedding new light on images previously investigated as part of the dragon-slayer topos. One must not forget that the dragon is a figment of the human imagination, an entirely cultural construct. Another important insight suggested by this book thus concerns the diversity of meanings associated with the sign of the dragon over time, as it was imbued with both negative and positive significance. As I have argued throughout this study, the analysis of visual representations exploring the complex relationships between dragons, men and women necessitates a recognition that “man” and “woman” exist as two distinct signs, with fundamentally different meanings and contexts, within the same semiotic system. The transformation of the motif over time has impacted not only its visual representation, but also its thematic contents, in a manner that exposes the growing cultural and social oppression of women within Western culture over an extensive time period. At the same time, this study has endeavored to reveal the enduring vestiges of female power, which were relegated to folkloric and ritual sites, usually persisting in the context of female cults and of events pertaining to the female lifecycle, which largely took place in the domestic sphere. The fundamental alliance between women and dragons relates this study to the theoretical study of monsters, 4 demonstrating how the analysis of mythological creatures, and of dragons in particular, can elucidate gender-related concerns in changing social and cultural contexts. Moreover, as I have demonstrated, images have a privileged relationship with culturally and socially troublesome issues, which can be more easily sublimated within visual representations. The overarching goal of creating a cohesive analysis has compelled me to choose particular figures that are representative of especially significant issues, and whose examination is supported by extensive evidence, in order to form a comprehensive thesis, while forcing me to exclude many more figures and examples. These include, among others, figures such as Scylla, Olympia, Melusine, and Cleopatra, which are all deserving of further investigation.5 This study thus also offers a starting point 4 Jeffrey J. Cohen, ed., Monster Theory: Reading Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996). 5 On Scylla, see: Homer, The Odyssey, ed. Martin Litchf ield West, trans. Samuel Butler (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017): 12.600–630. Marianne G. Hopman, Scylla Myth, Metaphor, Paradox (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Daniel Ogden, Drakōn: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 129–135; Daniel Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers in the Classical and Early Christian Worlds: A Sourcebook (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 179–184.

Conclusion 

for a theoretical exploration of gender as the underlying basis for constellations of additional signs, most notably hybrid female and animal motifs. The current book is thus the first part of a more extensive research project, whose developments involves an exploration of this motif in early modern and modern art. The expansion of this study will involve particular interest in Raphael and Titian’s paintings of Saint Margaret, which drastically transformed the iconography of the saint to form a multilayered interpretation that sheds light on the position of exceptionally powerful women in yet another cultural and historical context.6 The last part of this research project will explore the endurance of this motif in modern and contemporary art, most notably in fantastic visual art. One prominent example to be explored in the contemporary context is the character of Daenerys Targaryen in the popular HBO series Game of Thrones, based on George R. R. Martin’s book A Song of Ice and Fire.7 This ongoing exploration of the constellation of meanings embedded in the motif of the woman and the dragon attests to the continually disturbing presence of powerful women within patriarchy, while underscoring the attempts to eclipse or undermine this presence through the gradual accrual of imposed meanings.

On Olympia, see: Albert Henrichs, “Greek Maenadism from Olympias to Messalina,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 82 (1978), pp. 121–160; Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 331–335; Ogden, Dragons, Serpents and Slayers, p. 150. On Cleopatra, see Brian A. Curran, “Love, Triumph, Tragedy: Cleopatra and Egypt in High Renaissance Rome,” in Cleopatra: A Sphinx Revisited, ed. Margaret M. Miles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), pp. 96–131; Dennis Geronimus, Piero di Cosimo: Visions Beautiful and Strange (New Haven: Yale University, 2006), pp. 61–64. On Melusine, see Boria Sax, The Serpent and the Swan: The Animal Bride in Folklore and Literature (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1998), pp. 84–97, 238–247; Jean D’Arras, Melusine, or, The Noble History of Lusignan (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012). Jill M. Hebert, Morgan Le Fay: Shapeshifter (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Kemmis Urban, Deva F. Kemmis and Melissa R. Elmes, eds., Melusine’s Footprint: Tracing the Legacy of a Medieval Myth (Leiden: Brill, 2017). 6 Sharon Khalifa-Gueta, “The Dragon and Femininity in Saint Margaret Paintings by Raphael and Titian,” doctoral dissertation (Be’er Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2020). 7 George R. R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire (New York: Bantam Books; Voyager Books, 1996–2011); Benioff and Weiss, Game of Thrones (HBO 2011–2019); Khalifa-Gueta, “Mother of Dragons.”

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325

Index Aaron 28 Aberdeen Painter 63 Abrahami Eleazaris 210 Abyzou 218 Achilles Tatius 99 Acrisius 124 Acropolis 40 fig. 5, 87, 116 Actaeon 95 Adam 194, 195, 196, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203 fig. 40, 204, 207, 208 fig. 48, 209, 210, 211 also fig. 45, 214, 216, 223 Aegeus 137, 187, 199 Aeschylus 77 Africa 32, 37, 38, 44, 45, 57, 93, 112, 155 African Queen 112 Agathos Daimon 33, 44, 155, 187, 217, 112 Agnolo Gaddi  235, 242 Agora 76, 143, 161 Agrippa 103, 104 fig. 23, 105, 106, 108 Ahi-Budhnyà Serpent of the deep 72 Aietes 130, 131, 134, 153, 159 Alabasdria 218, 222 Albrecht Dürer 255, 257, 258 Alcathous 100 Alessandro de’Medici 254, 255 Alexander the Great 102 Alexandria 106 Altarpiece 234 fig.50, 235, 237, 239, 243, 244, 245, 247, 248, 249, 266 Amazon 49, 68, 112, 121 Amenhotep II 59 Amphisbaena A double-headed serpent 69 Anat 144 Androgynous 171, 172, 175, 248 Androgyn 24, 190 Andromeda 12, 43, 44, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92 also fig. 18, 93, 94 also fig. 19, 95, 96 fig. 20, 97, 98 fig. 21, 99, 100, 101 fig. 22, 102, 103, 104 fig. 23, 105, 106, 107 fig. 24, 108, 109, 110, 122, 123, 124, 127, 145, 165, 166 Angels 231 Angitia 137, 170 Anguipedian Anguiform, Anguipedic, Anguiped 13, 27, 59, 62 ( fig. 13), 64, 72, 76, 111, 144, 193, 194, 209, 210, 212, 214, 217, 218, 222, 223, 225, 228, 242-243, 258-260, 270, 277 Animal-mistress 114 Anodos 173 Antaura 218, 221, 222, 223 Anthesphoria Flower-bearing 156 Anthonius Guainerius 265 Anthropology 15, 16, 109

Antioch 9, 229, 230, 231, 235 Antiphanes 100 Antonello Gaggini 249 Aphrodite 49, 51, 69, 84, 103, 130, 139, 161, 204 Apollo 12, 18, 28, 37, 47, 51, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74 ( fig. 15a), 75 ( fig. 15b), 76, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 159, 163, 167-168, 222, 274 Apollonios 130, 132, 168, 178 Apotheosis 128, 171, 178, 179, 180, 182, 187, 276 Apotropaic (apotropaios) 13, 33, 39, 41, 110, 111, 113, 114, 136, 165, 175, 186, 190, 193, 214, 215, 217, 218, 223, 225, 241, 270, 271, 274, 277 Apple 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 190, 204 Apsyrtus 131, 138, 178 Apulian 73, 83, 95, 97, 100, 103, 133, 145, 153, 159, 160, 162, 176, 184, Arcadians 175 Archaic 57, 78, 84, 111, 113, 114, 132, 138, 141, 144, 169, 170, Archangel Michael 14, 34, 43, 86, 198, 246, 247 ( fig. 55), 248, 259 Archetype 24, 128, 273 Archetypal 9, 20, 32, 221 Ares 49, 50, 52, 68, 69, 87 Argeiphontes 32 Argeiphontos 69 Argo, Argos, Argonauts  31, 32, 69, 112, 129, 132, 156 Argonaut(s), Argonautica  129, 130, 141, 145, 168, 184 Aristophanes 99 Aristotle 43, 81, 172, Artemis 113, 114, 124, 128, 130, 150, 151, 163, 172, 173, 174, 175, 186, Diana 167, 174 Asclepius 141, 144, 147, 149, 150, 151, 169, 170, 190 Asia 32, 57 Asia Minor 173, 174, 231 Aspasia of Miletus Aspasia 20, 189 Assyrian 200, 215 Astar 58 Athena 36 fig. 3, 40 also fig. 5, 49, 65, 70, 72, 88, 110, 114, 115, 116 also fig. 26, 118 fig. 27, 119, 122, 124, 143, 145, 159, 163, 168, 170, 172, 174, 179, Minerva 122, 174 Athens 20, 33, 39, 40 fig. 5, 54 fig. 9, 66, 72, 76, 79, 84, 87, 93, 95, 116, 121 fig. 28, 127, 133, 137, 141, 156, 158, 182, 187, 189 Atlas 153, 154 Augustus 105, 165 Babylonian 60, 200, 215 Balkan 218, 245 Bas 143 Bat 57

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Beda 212 Ben-Sira 215 Berlin Painter 116, 189 Bernardo Daddi 243, 244 Bes 113 Bias 13, 20, 41, 127, 128, 182, 191, 200, 225 Birth 56, 63, 70, 72, 73, 84, 88, 112, 115, (births) 186, 187, 229, 264, 266, 267, 269, 271, 275 Rebirth 27, 37, 59, 60, 108 Black demon 230, 231, 247, 259 Bona Dea 180, 181 Boread 145 Brain-dragon 24 Byzantine 35, 86, 217, 219, 220 fig. 47, 259 Cadmos 10, 12, 47, 48, 49, 50 also fig. 7, 51, 52 also fig. 8, 53, 54 also fig. 9, 55 fig. 10, 56, 57, 63, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 76, 85, 87, 90, 130, 153, 189, 274 Caduceus Kerykeion 28, 31, 68, 69, 84, 85, 150 Cairo 59 fig. 11, 60, 61 fig. 12 Calcatio colli 205, 219, 245, 246, 248, 249, 257 Canaanite 67 Canidia 166 Capsa 267, 268 Casa de Dante 252 Casinensis 233 Cassandra 117 Cassel Painter 52 also fig. 8, 53, 71, 87, 274 Cassiopea Cassiepeia 91, 93, 103 Castelfiorentino 257 Cathar  Catharism 34, 207, 213 Cavaliers Painter 50, 86 Cave Grotto 10, 12, 16, 47, 48, 51, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 63, 68, 70, 71, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 86, 87, 88, 95, 99, 100, 110, 151, 153, 156, 157, 190, 274, 275, 277 Centaurus 115 Cerberus 156, 166 Charybdis 44, 132 Chiavacuore 266 Childbirth 13, 14, 20, 54, 125, 128, 175, 186, 193, 194, 196, 199, 218, 221, 222, 223, 225, 227, 228, 235, 241, 242, 245, 255, 257, 258, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 277, Chnoubis 216 Christianity 86, 274, 277 Chrysaor 110, 113 fig. 25 Chrysippus 183 Chthonic 31, 83, 85, 115, 179 Cicero 128, 129, 182 Circe 132 Clement of Alexandria 77 Cleopatra 278 Clodia Metelli 128, 182 Clodius Pulcher 128

Colchis 13, 63, 127, 129, 130, 131, 133, 134, 139, 143, 145, 151, 152, 154, 158, 161, 163, 167, 175, 177, 184, 276, Comestor 207, 212, 213 Constance 219, 220 fig. 48 Constantine 35, 219 Constantinople 42 fig. 6, 219, 233, 235, 266 Coptic 219, 222 Corinth Corinthian 9, 13, 91, 92 fig. 18, 93, 97, 108, 127, 133, 134, 136, 137, 138, 139, 141, 142, 143, 153, 158, 159, 170, 175, 177, 180, 186, 197, 217 Cosmology 27, 60, 268 Cow Calf 12, 47, 49, 54, 57, 58, 59, 63, 67, 88 Creon 133 Crete 84 Creusea 133, 167, 182, 185 Cuir ciselè 264 Cybele 173 Cypselus 139 Danaë 110, 124 Daphna 77 Darius Painter 93, 95, 97, 98 fig, 21, 100, 159, 160 fig. 36, 161, 162, 186 Day of Judgment 268 Debellator hostium (confronting the enemy)  219 Delphi (Delphis) Delphic 12, 43, 50, 67, 68, 71, 72, 73, 76 fig. 16, 77, 78, 80 fig. 17, 81, 82, 83 84, 85, 86, 87, 163, 183, 274 Delphic Oracle 49, 63, 76, 77, 79, 81, 85, 86, 87, 163 Delphyne 12, 47, 51, 68, 71, 72, 76, 77, 78, 84, 85Demeter Ceres 63, 64, 65, 85, 155, 156, 159, 162, 163, 173, 179, 180, 257, 270 Demiurge 216 Derkylos 68 Descent to Hell 268 Didymus 64 Diodorus Siculus 112 Dionysia 85, 133 Dionysius Scytobrachion 130, 163 Dionysus Bacchus 58, 76, 79, 81, 85, 166 Dionysus Scytobrachion 132 Dioscuri 106, 107 fig. 24, 108, 159, 164 fig. 37 Diosphos Painter 115, 119 Dirce 53 Dominican 205, 229 Donatello 260 also fig. 60 Dove 262, 269 Draco, dracone, dracones  29, 31, 39, 43, 167, 181 Drakaina 29, 72, 109, 114, 118, 120 Dracontopede 13, 209, 211, 212, 213, 214, 218, 223, 225, 259, 270 Dragon-slayer 9, 10, 11, 14, 18, 19, 23, 24, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 45, 48, 69, 70, 71, 86, 89, 97,

329

Index 

109, 122, 189, 196, 198, 219, 223, 227, 228, 259, 260, 273, 275, 276, 278 Drakōn (female, drakaina; plural, drakontes) 12, 17, 18, 19, 29, 33, 64, 68, 87, 88, 274 Early Christian 13, 18, 35, 37, 86, 181, 194, 197, 201, 203, 209, 225, 226, Early Modern (early modernity) 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 37, 38, 39, 41, 43, 44, 45, 100, 120, 191, 194, 205, 227, 231, 241, 250, 252, 262, 268, 269, 271, 272, 273, 274, 277, 279 Earth 49, 57, 63, 66, 70, 77, 79, 81, 82, 83, 85, 88, 147, 153, 155, 156, 167, 180, 199, 200, 275, Gaia (Ge) 12, 63, 66, 67, 68, 76, 77, 78, 82, 83, 87, 88, 154, 155, 180 Echelidai 79, 84 Echidna 85, 209 Eden 13, 34, 39, 66, 191, 193, 194, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 207, 209, 210, 212, 213, 219, 222, 223, 225, 226, 258 Egypt, Egyptian 9, 11, 24, 26, 28, 29, 31, 34, 35, 57, 58, 59 also fig. 11, 61 fig. 12, 63, 64, 106, 112, 113, 143, 144, 216, 219, 222, 270, 273, 274 Eileithyia 65, 175 Ekphrasis 99, 139 Elea 175 Eleans 175 Eleusinian Mysteries 64, 156, 173 Elijah 221 Elysian Fields 152, 153, 154, 159, 161, 186, 190 Empress Marina Maria 233 Enchantment speech 270 Endymion 180 Enkidu 203 Ennius 102 Enoch 201 Ephebes 187, 189 Epictetus 183 Epirus 65, 87 Epistemological 17, 22, 89, 90, 273, 276 Erichthonius 88 Erictho 166 Eriny Fury 68, 131, 143, 158, 159, 168, 169, 174 Eros 100, 101 fig. 22, 102, 161, 183, 184, Erotes 153 erotic 11, 68, 100, 105, 117, 147, 184, 185, 187, 194 Ethiopia 91, 93, 95, 197, Etiological Terminus ante quem 47, 67 Etruscan 57, 73, 103, 130 Euanthes 106 Euripides 63, 73, 77, 83, 92, 95, 102, 108, 131, 133, 136, 144, 158, 159, 168, 172, 173 Europa 48, 57 Euryale 110 Eurydice 95 Eurynome 66

Eusebius 35, 66, 219 Eve 13, 191, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203 also fig. 40, 204, 205, 206 fig. 42, 207, 208 also fig. 43, 209, 210 fig. 44, 211 fig. 45, 212, 213, 214, 223, 224 fig. 49, 225, 270, 277, Exile (Exiled) 49, 69, 87, 106, 120, 129 Ezekiel 200 Fertility demons She demons 13, 136, 165, 194, 215, 217, 218, 219, 222, 228, 241, 269, 270, 271, 277 Field of Reeds 59 Fire 18, 24, 29, 79, 114, 130, 166, 168, 169, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 181, 183, 184, 233, 255, 257, 279 Fire-breathing Bulls 130 Firminus Pupius 181 First Vatican Mythographer 69 Florence 43, 44, 64 fig. 14, 163, 165, 233, 235, 237, 243, 244, 248, 249, 252, 254, 260 also fig. 60 Flower(s) 60, 103, 105, 155, 156, 242, 243, 249 Francesco Boccardi 254, 259 Fruit 60, 63, 99, 153, 155, 156, 177, 178, 186, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 202, 203, 204, 214, 216, 277, Gate(s) 43, 60, 70, 201, 232, 243 Genius paterfamilias 33, 147, 151, 187 Genoa 238, 249 Giovanni da Gaeta 248 Giovanni di Paolo 249 Glycon 33, 151, 187 Gnostic 34, 197, 198, 210, 211, 213, 217 Gold (golden) 58, 59 fig. 11, 61 also fig. 12, 119, 153, 154, 156, 190, 220 fig. 48, 233, 242, 243 fig. 54, 247 fig. 55, 251 fig. 56, 252, 258, 276 Golden Fleece 13, 127, 129, 130, 131, 145, 152, 154, 155, 156, 162, 178, 190 Golden Legend 228, 261, 270 Gorgo Gorgon(s) 40 also fig. 5, 91, 110, 111, 112, 114, 115, 116, 117, 154, 215 Gospels 269 Graeae 100, 110, 154 Great Goddess Great Mother Goddess 12, 15, 47, 57, 60, 67, 69, 76, 78, 82, 84, 85, 112, 163, 173, 175, 180, 197, 200 Great Goddesses Great fertility Goddesses 10, 57, 58, 60, 88, 89, 162, 186, 227, 274, 275, 276, 277 Greco-Roman 9, 11, 12, 14, 18, 22, 23, 25, 29, 31, 32, 33, 37, 47, 48, 55, 56, 57, 65, 71, 72, 85, 86, 89, 90, 93, 99, 109, 112, 120, 122, 123, 124, 127, 128, 147, 173, 176, 191, 193, 194, 195, 198, 202, 216, 270, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277 Grotesque (Grotesquely)  32, 113, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120, 189, 214, 246 Guardacuore 266 Guido Bonatti 43 Gylou 218

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Hades 29, 68, 95, 99, 110, 155, 179 Pluto 179 Hadrian 120 Hagiography 13, 20, 36, 227, 228, 259, 261, 263 Hagiographies 228, 231, 235, 262, 265 Haimon Painter 141 Hair (hairstyle, hairy) 79, 83, 113, 115, 116, 117, 119, 122, 123, 124, 128, 166, 168, 169, 175, 182, 183, 185, 190, 212, 213, 215, 233, 242, 252, 258 Harmonia 48, 49, 50 fig. 7, 51, 54 fig. 9, 56, 68, 69, 70, 85, 90 Harpe 91, 110 Hathor 26, 57, 58, 59, 60, 68, 88, 112, 144, 274 Healer(s) Healing 47, 64, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 137, 139, 141, 144, 150, 151, 152, 154, 155, 158, 161, 169, 170, 171, 179, 181, 182, 186, 190, 245, 248, 266, 268, 269 Hecate 76, 128, 132, 144, 166, 168, 169, 170, 174, 181 Helios 132, 133, 166, 173 Hellenistic 20, 81, 102, 103, 105, 106, 120, 125, 129, 154, 217, 219 Henotheistic 181, 216 Hephaestus 69, 110 Hera Juno 31, 57, 72, 73, 88, 128, 142, 151, 153, 154, 156, 175, 177, 180, 181, 186, 214 Hera Akraia 136, 142, Heracles 91, 100 Herbs 26, 127, 128, 130, 132, 145, 147, 162, 166, 171, 174, 180, 182 Herculaneum 103 Hercules 37, 91, 100, 129, 131, 145, 153, 157 fig. 35, 159, 161, 167, 180, 186, 202, 204, 232 Hermes 29, 30 fig. 1, 32, 69, 91, 106, 110, 115, 119, 150 Hermes Psychopompos 28, 69 Hermonax Painter 187 Hesiod 48, 92, 114, 115, 117, 132, 156 Hesione 91, 100 Hesperides 110, 127, 145, 149, 150, 152, 153, 154, 156, 157 fig. 35, 159, 161, 190, 194, 202, 204, 276, 277 Hestia 173, 175 Hieros Gamos 153 Hittite 67 Holy rider 219, 220 fig. 47, 221, 222 Holy Spirit 269 Homer 26, 32, 44, 48, 99, 114, 129, 266 Homeric 28, 31, 66, 68, Homeric Hymn(s) 28, 69, 72, 81 83 Horace 166 Horn(s) 57, 59, 250, 259 Horus 143, 219 Hosioi Male priest of Apollo 81 Hours 37, 38 fig 4, 237, 240, 250, 251 fig. 56, 252, 253 fig. 57, 254, 255, 258, 264, 266 Humbaba 89, 111 Hydra 85, 133, 167 Hygieia Salus 141, 147, 148 fig. 34, 149, 150, 160, 190

Hyginus 73, 83 Hystera 217, 218 fig. 46, 219 Idyia Idaea 132, 142 Illyria 49, 56 Imitatio Christi 269 Imitatio Mariae 255 Immaculate conception 269 Immortal (immortality) 136, 154, 160, 177, 197 Imperial period 21, 33, 85, 122, 125, 165, 201 Inanna 113 India 57, 89, 225, Indo-European 19, 24, 32, 89, 117 Infanticide 136, 138, 158, 167, 171, 186 Inquisition 263 Inter alia Abstain from sex 65, 66 Io 28, 31, 57 Iolcus 127, 129, 131 Ionians 57 Iris 159 Isaiah 35 Isis 88, 144, 170, 217 Italy 20, 38, 41, 57, 93, 95, 102, 137, 161, 205, 229, 231, 233, 235, 237, 239, 240, 242, 244, 245, 246, 248, 255, 265, 266, Ithaca 65 Jacobus Jacobus de Voragine 228, 229, 230, 250, 261, 262, 270 James 41, 96 fig. 20, 97, 229 Jan van Eyck 266 Jason 36 fig. 3, 37, 63, 68, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 139, 141, 143, 145, 154, 158, 159, 161, 162, 165, 166, 169, 170, 175, 178, 179, 180, 184, 190, 191, 204, 232, 242 Jean Poyer 258 Jehovah 34 Jesus Christ 34, 35, 37, 39, 41, 68, 191, 198, 201, 205, 210, 211, 223, 230, 232, 250, 264, 265, 268 Joan of Arc 263 Job 35, 196 John Mandeville 44 Jonah 36 fig. 2, 37, 68, 232, 238 Julia Augusta 105, 106 Juno Sospita 88, 181 Justin Martyr 205 Ka 60 Kadmeioi Thebans 48 Kali 57 Kanephoros 156 Kantharos 147 Kastor 129, 141 Kathareusai Abstain from sex 65, 66

331

Index 

Kathodos 173 Ketos 37, 43, 85, 91, 97, 100, 102, 103, 105, 106, 108, 109, 125, 167, 180, 184, 189, 232 Kibisis Bag 91, 110, 119 King Cepheus 91 King Polydectes 110, 124 Klearchos 73 Kodros Painter 79 Kore Persephone 63, 64 fig. 14, 65, 85, 155, 156, 159, 173, 179 Kronos 29, 66 Ktisis 138 Ladon 151, 153, 161, 167, 204 Lamashtu 111, 217 Lamia 53, 73, 85, 111, 136, 194, 209, 214, 215, 218, 270 Lanuvium 27, 87, 88, 151 Laocoon 70 Lat 57 Late Antique 35, 51 Latona 57 Laura Laurel 81, 82, 85, 165 Leda 57 Leontocephaline Leontocephalic 29, 150, 172, 216 Leto 57, 72, 73, 85, 186, Leviathan 35, 37 Lilith 13, 191, 193, 194, 208, 209, 214, 215, 216, 217, 219, 221, 222, 223, 224 fig. 49, 225, 228, 241, 258, 270, 277 Lilitu 217 Lilu Lila 215 Liminal 55, 56, 88, 97, 99, 103, 108, 115, 168, 169, 190, 201, 226, 241, 268, 275, 276, 277 Lion(s) 39, 111, 112, 113 also fig. 25, 114, 172, 174, 216, 217, 246, 252, 262 Livius Anndronicus 102 Lizard 25, 76 Locus sanctus 71, 248 Lombard  Lombardy 233, 248 Lucan 77, 166 Lucian 64, 71 Lycophron 102 Macrobius 38, 180, 181 Maenads Bacchantes 123, 166, 185 Magic (magical) 16, 34, 39, 53, 114, 120, 128, 138, 143, 144, 145, 163, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 193, 214, 216, 217, 218, 223, 264, 267, 268, 270, 271 Magna Mater Great Mother 12, 47, 57, 58, 60, 63, 66, 67, 69, 70, 71, 76, 77, 78, 82, 84, 85, 87, 88, 111, 112, 113, 115, 129, 162, 163, 173, 174, 175, 180, 181, 197, 200, 204, 275, 277

Makron Painter 187 Marco Polo 44 Margaret of Austria 254, 255 Margarite Dantini 267 Margheritoan 242 Marriage 12, 18, 20, 69, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 97, 105, 106, 109, 122, 123, 124, 139, 156, 160, 165, 178, 213, 235, 259, 266, 275, 277 Marruvium 137 Marsi 137, 170 Mary 27, 37, 60, 101 fig. 22, 194, 204, 205 also fig. 41, 207, 209, 211 fig. 45, 223, 224 fig. 49, 229, 231, 246, 255, 257, 258, 269 Madonna 205, 206 fig. 42, 223, 225, 248, 269 Mary Magdalene 231, 258 matriarchal 10, 12, 20, 22, 88, 109, 111, 181, 274, 278 Maurice de Sully 238, 241 Medea 9, 13, 19, 21, 69, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134 also fig. 29, 135 fig. 30, 136, 137, 138, 139, 141, 142 also fig. 32, 143, 144, 145, 146 fig. 33, 147, 149, 150, 152, 153, 155, 158, 159, 160 fig. 36, 161, 162, 163, 164 also fig. 37, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177 also fig. 38, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188 fig. 39, 189, 190, 191, 195, 199, 202, 204, 214, 222, 270, 276, 277 Medea’s children 133, 136, 142, 177, 178 Medes 137 Mediterranean 9, 10, 11, 12, 18, 23, 25, 32, 60, 66, 113, 190, 196, 218 also fig. 49, 277 Medus 137 Medusa 12, 13, 20, 21, 32, 40 also fig. 5, 53, 85, 88, 89, 90, 91, 100, 103, 106, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113 also fig. 25, 114, 115, 116 also fig. 26, 117, 118 also fig. 27, 119, 120, 121 also fig. 28, 122, 123, 124, 125, 127, 128, 152, 156, 168, 169, 189, 190, 194, 209, 214, 215, 217, 218 fig. 46, 222, 270, 274, 275, 277 Megera Chamber 58, 60, 64, 81, 173 Mehet-Weret 57 Meidias Painter 145, 159, 186 Melusine 218, 278 Menander Rhetor 83 Mesopotamia 11, 24, 28, 32, 57, 63, 89, 111, 113, 196, 273 Metaphrastes 232, 261 Miasma 177, 178, 179, 186, 190 Middle Kingdom 58 Minoan 9, 11 Misericordia 243 Mithraic 29, 150, 172, 216 Mithras 29, 99, 172, 173, Mombritius 233, 236 fig. 51, 237, 238 Monosandal 129 Monster(s) 18, 19, 28, 31, 33, 35, 37, 39, 41, 43, 44, 45, 72, 73, 91, 97, 105, 111, 119, 120, 131, 169, 209, 217, 278 Montici 235, 245, 248 Moon 57, 63, 70, 166, 174, 254, 255 Mormo 136, 215 Mount Casius 99

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The Woman and the Dr agon in Premodern Art

Mount Cronius 175 Murder (murderer, murderous) 127, 128, 129, 133, 136, 138, 158, 159, 167, 168, 171, 175, 178, 179, 182, 186, 198, 276 Nausicaa Painter 117, 119 Nekhbet 58 Neoplatonic 183 Nereid(s) 91, 105 New Testament 201, 229, 268 Nicobule 102 Nicolas Flamel 210 Nike 159 Victoria 223, 224 fig. 49 Niobid 94 fig. 19, 176 Nomos Law 158, 267 Nonnus 69, 79 Nymph 56, 58, 72, 73, 77, 81, 91, 99, 110 Obyzouth 218, 221 Odysseus 132 Ogygos 67 Oikouros Ophis 33, 65, 87, 119, 143 Oistros Frenzy 162, 184 Okeanor 67 Old Testament 39, 215 Old witches 267 Old women 81, 171, 267 Olibrius 230, 238 Olympia 278 Olympus 168 Omphalos 79, 80 fig. 17, 83, 85, 87 One Thousand and One Nights 225 Ophion 28, 66, 67 Ophioneus 67 Oracles 12, 35, 56, 77, 81, 82, 83, 183 Oracula Sibyllina 86 Orance 64, 238 Orpheus 129 Ovid 37, 70, 77, 83, 90, 92, 103, 115, 117, 119, 122, 131, 163, 166, 168, 169, 174, 183, 191 Padua 242, 265 Paidagogos Teacher 159, 171 Palace of Knossos Knossos 143 Palaephatus 49, 68, 69 Palermo 116 fig. 26, 207, 208 fig. 43, 249 Pan 51, 56, 58, 119, Pandora 195 Pan Painter 119 Paolo Uccello Uccello 260, 261 Paterfamilia 33, 108, 147, 151, 187 Pathos 15 Patriarchy 21

Pausanias 49, 77, 81, 112, 134, 136, 139, 150, 175 Pearl (pearly) 230, 233, 242, 270 Pegasus 84, 110, 113 fig. 24, 115, 119 Pelasgian 66 Pelias 127, 129, 131, 132, 133, 138, 141, 142, 143, 154, 161, 163, 169, 178 Peloponnese 48, 57, 176 Persephone Kore 63, 64 also fig. 14, 65, 85, 155, 156, 159, 173, 179 Perseus 12, 17, 43, 70, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92 also fig. 18, 93, 94, 96 fig. 20, 97, 98 fig. 21, 100, 101 fig. 22, 102, 103, 104 fig. 23, 105, 106, 107 fig. 24, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 115, 116 also fig. 26, 117, 118 fig. 27, 119, 121, 122, 124, 125, 145, 189, 199, 259, 275 Persian(s) 89, 99, 137 Personification 53, 55 fig. 10, 56, 68, 73, 162 Peter The subdeacon of Naples 232 Phaleron 79, 84 Phantasma 232 Pharaoh(s) 28, 59, 112 Pheonicia 48 Phiale 51, 145, 150, 153, 158, 161, 188 fig. 39, 219 Philoctetes 95 Phineus 91, 97, 124 Phino of Byblos 66 Phoebe 77 Phormus 100 Phrixus 154 Phrygian 103 Phrynichus 100, 102 Phylarchus 170 Piero della Francesca 269 Pilos Pointed hat 51 Pindar 77, 112, 130, 131, 154, 163 Plato 183 Pliny the Elder 43, 44, 82 Plutarch 77, 85 Pollux 141 Polygnotos Painter 117, 118 also fig. 27, 119 Polyphemus 105 Pomegranate 155, 156 Pompeii 79, 80 fig. 17, 103, 105, 106, 107 fig. 107, 108, 145, 164 fig. 37, 165, 171, 185 Pope Gelasius 231 Porphyry 99 Portinari 235, 249, 266 Poseidon 91, 115, 117, 119, 156 Prophesy 78, 81 Psychopompos 28, 69 Pythagoras of Rhegion 73 Pythesthai 81, 82 Pythia 12, 47, 49, 57, 71, 77, 79, 81, 82, 83, 86, 87, 163, 183, 274 Pythian 71, 72, 83, 154, Pytho 77, 82 Python 12, 18, 28, 32, 34, 37, 47, 48, 51, 56, 65, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74 fig. 15a, 75 fig. 15b, 76 also fig. 16,

333

Index 

77, 78, 79, 80 fig. 17, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 133, 167, 186, 274 Python Painter 50 fig. 7, 51, 53, 56, 87 Quattordici Santi ausiliatori 231 Qumran 215 Ra 58 Radulph of Rivo Radulph 231 Ram Lamb 131, 141, 142 fig. 32, 155, 158, 163, 217 Rameses III 144 Raoul Lefèvre 190 Raphael 209, 249, 250, 258, 279 Rebdorf 232, 233 Relic(s) 233, 235, 238, 245, 248, 257, 266, 269 Rhea 79 Rock(s) 49, 51, 52, 72, 73, 87, 95, 99, 100, 103, 105, 106, 230 Romagna 248 Roman imperial Imperial Rome 21, 33, 85, 122, 125, 165, 201 Rufus 233 Sabazion 180 Sacrifice sacrificed 49, 65, 79, 83, 91, 97, 124, 127, 151, 159, 163, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 186, 187, 190, 259 Saint Antony 35 Saint Benevanuta of Friuli 263 Saint Bertin 238 Saint Catherine 231, 235, 243, 248, 259, 263 Saint George 14, 35, 39, 41, 43, 86, 219, 227, 228, 246, 248, 259, 260 also fig. 60, 261, 262 Saint Jerome 262 Saint Margaret (Margaret) 13, 14, 20, 194, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 235, 236 fig. 51, 237, 238, 239 fig. 52, 240 fig. 53, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251 fig. 56, 252, 253 fig. 57, 254 fig. 58, 255, 256 fig. 59, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 276, 277, 279 Saint Marina (Marina) 227, 228, 231, 232, 233, 235, 259, 266 Saint Martha 263 Saint Methodius 231 Saint Simeon Stylites 34, 262 Saint Sylvester 262 Sakmet 58 Salvation 13, 21, 29, 31, 37, 159, 161, 176, 178, 179, 180, 182, 186, 187, 190, 191, 201, 276, 277 Samael 216, 222, 223 San Miniato al Monte 245 Sarapis 29, 144 Sarcophagus Sarcophagi 13, 36 fig. 2, 37, 64 also fig. 14, 108, 121, 145, 162, 163, 175, 176, 177 also fig. 38, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 185, 186, 187, 194, 202, 203 fig. 40, 276 Satan 34, 48, 181, 197, 198, 201, 213, 231

Saturn Cronus 216 Satyr 51 Scylax 102 Scylla 44, 85, 132, 209, 278 Scythia 63 Seal 221, 269 Sekhmet 112 Selene Luna 174, 180 Semiotic(s) 14, 16, 17, 20, 38, 123, 124, 278 Seneca 67, 165, 167, 168, 170, 174, 178, 183, 184, 185 Sennedjem 60 Serpent(s) (serpentine) 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 25, 26, 28, 31, 33, 34, 35, 39, 41, 44, 51, 60, 65, 69, 72, 77, 79, 82, 84, 85, 88, 115, 128, 138, 139, 143, 144, 147, 149, 150, 151, 152, 156, 157, 160, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 175, 178, 181, 183, 184, 185, 186, 190, 191, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 219, 222, 223, 225, 233, 246, 255, 257, 270, 276, 277 Serpents in the soul 13, 170, 183, 199, 207, 276 Seth 26, 219 Sextus Empiricus 169 Shahmaran 225 Sheep 154 Sibyl(s) 86, 215 Sicily 93, 95, 168, 207, 249, Siena 249, 259 Silene 259 Sirens 212, 214 Sisinnios 219, 222 Sisyphus 136 Skin 26, 68, 79, 91, 157, 259, Snake(s) 11, 14, 20, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 34, 39, 41, 48, 50, 56, 60, 63, 64, 65, 66, 69, 70, 76, 82, 85, 90, 112, 113, 114, 116, 119, 124, 133, 138, 139, 163, 164, 166, 167, 168, 169, 173, 178, 180, 183, 184, 199, 200, 217, 222, 225, 257, 273 Snakebites 137 Snake cult 56, 66, 69 Solomon 35, 219, 221, 230, 269 Sophia 210, 211, 217 Sophocles 92, 93, 95, 102, 108, 168, 172 Sosipolis 65, 175 Sotades Painter 51 Sparta(ns) 67, 111, 147 Spartoi Sown men 49 Spear(s) (speared) 49, 119, 222, 248, 259, 260, 261 Sphinx(es) 49, 68, 69, 212, 214 Spreckles Painter 53 Stereotype(s) 11, 13, 20, 128, 190, 193, 194, 199, 208, Stheno 110 Stoic 183 Structure(s) (structured, strutural) Structuralism 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 32, 38, 45, 56, 87, 90, 108, 116, 124, 169, 189, 201, 203, 270, 274, 277

334 

The Woman and the Dr agon in Premodern Art

Sudan 60 Sword 35, 49, 91, 103, 105, 106, 110, 137, 165, 168, 171, 175, 179, 182, 187, 189 Sycamore 60 Tarentine 93, 106 Tarentum 93 Teeth 49, 51, 54, 63, 66, 68, 79, 87, 113, 130, 233 Tellus Terra Mater 180 Telphousa 72 Telphusa 84, 87 Tertullian 181 The bad woman 187, 225 Thebes 48, 49, 51, 53, 56, 63, 67, 68, 87, 144 The bride of death 12, 95, 99, 124, 147, 156, 275 The bride of Hades The bride of death 95, 99, 124, 147, 156, 275 Themis 12, 67, 76, 77, 87 Theodore 35, 219 Theodosius 86, 180 The previous owner 12, 63, 67, 68, 77, 78 Theseus 137, 166, 187, 188 fig. 39, 189 Thesmophoria 27, 64, 66, 156, 173, 181 The tree of the knowledge of good and evil The tree of the knowledge 195 The woman and the dragon 9, 10, 11, 14, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 46, 47, 54, 70, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 122, 128, 129, 139, 147, 154, 190, 191, 193, 194, 199, 200, 201, 202, 208, 212, 214, 216, 217, 222, 225, 227, 228, 229, 241, 257, 262, 263, 264, 270,272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 279 Tiamat 58 Titian 209, 250, 279 Toxic Poison(s) (poisonous, poisoning) 26, 81, 82, 83, 87, 131, 133, 137, 139, 167, 187, 199, 200 Tribaldo de Rossi 267 Trickster(s) 27, 29, 56, 70, 163 Tripod 42 fig. 6, 43, 71, 73, 76 also fig. 16, 77, 79, 81, 83, 84, 87, 128, 150, 163, 180, Triptolemos 27, 63, 64, 162, 179 Turin 145, 232, 234 fig. 50 Tuscany 245, 247 fig. 55, 265 Tutankhamun 58, 59 also fig. 11, 61 fig. 12 Tuthmosis III 59 Typhon 33, 67, 70, 72, 88, 173

Umiliana 255, 263 Underworld Painter 135 fig. 30, 173, 177, 184 Unicorn 250, 252, 259 Ur 60, 62 fig. 13 Uraeus 27, 28, 57, 58, 59, 112 Usener 231, 232, 233 Vagina(l) 88, 268 Valerius Flaccus 147, 184, 185 Vanni 234 fig. 50, 235, 239, 245, 247, 248, 266, 267 Vatican 30 fig. 1, 36 figs. 2, 3, 69, 209, 210 fig. 44, 212, 232, 234 fig. 50 Vedic 72 Venice 43, 44, 45, 233, 235, 260, 266 Venom (venomous) 28, 27, 68, 82, 83, 87, 105, 119, 133, 166, 167, 173 Verdiana 255, 257, 263 Vesta 19, 65, 88, 181 Vestal Virgins 19, 65, 88, 181 Vincent de Beauvais 212 Vipers 166, 212, 214 Virgil 152 Virgin(s) (virginity) 19, 57, 60, 63, 65, 66, 71, 79, 81, 82, 86, 87, 88, 120, 124, 127, 139, 147, 150, 151, 152, 156, 162, 171, 178, 179, 181, 183, 185, 194, 204, 205, 211 fig. 45, 212, 223, 230, 242, 248, 258, 259, 263, 267, 268, 269, 270, 275 Wace 233 Wadjet 57, 58, 59 also fig. 11, 64, 214, 270 Weret-Hekau 59, 61 fig. 12 Wings 31, 64, 113, 115, 117, 119, 215, 252 Witch(es) (witchcraft, witchlike) 9, 13, 127, 128, 132, 138, 144, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 178, 179, 181, 190, 198, 225, 267, 276 Woman of the Apocalypse 255, 257 Wondering womb 171 Yahweh 196, 198, 199, 200, 210 Yaldabaoth 210 Zeus 33, 48, 57, 63, 64, 67, 70, 72, 73, 79, 83, 85, 110, 136, 153, 155, 173, 231, 232 Zeus Melichios 151 Zohar 222