The Herodotus Encyclopedia. Группа авторов
pol. 14.4). Herodotus wonders that the famously clever Athenians fell for such a simple trick, but it may be that he is astounded not by their belief that gods sometimes appear to men but rather by their inability to distinguish between a true epiphany and a tall woman dressed in armor. Another staged apparition is that of SALMOXIS, the former slave of PYTHAGORAS, who is said to have hidden underground for three years before “appearing” to his Thracian followers (who believed him dead) thereby convincing them of the truth of his promises about eternal life (4.95.3; cf. Hellanicus BNJ 4 F73, Diog. Laert. 8.41). Finally, TELLIAS, a seer from ELIS, devised a stratagem for the Phocians during a night battle with the Thessalians: he painted the 600 best Phocian soldiers white with chalk and told them to kill anyone they saw not painted white. The Thessalian sentries, thinking the white figures a prodigy (τέρας), took fright and fled (8.27.3; cf. Paus. 10.1.7, 10.13.6).
It is striking that, of the many reports of divine or heroic apparitions to waking witnesses, Herodotus is always careful to identify his SOURCES and never explicitly endorses them in his own voice. An apparition must, of course, be seen or recognized by someone, and any witnesses are thus an integral part of the story. Since the narrative comes at second hand, attention to sources is to be expected, especially given the possibility of staged epiphanies (cf. Xen. Hell. 6.4.7). Nevertheless, the fact that Herodotus never states his belief in an anthropomorphic appearance of heroes or gods has struck some as a sign of skepticism, compounded by the fact that the testimony for many episodes is in various ways tenuous, either because they rely on a single source (5.92; 6.105, 117.2–3; 6.61.3–5, 69.1–4), because they are one of several competing accounts (the woman at Salamis, 8.84), or because they are part of a story that is, on other grounds, suspect (8.94; see Graf 2004, 115–18). Further support for this view might be sought in Herodotus’ (approving?) report of the Persian view that the Greeks are foolish for thinking the gods to have human forms (1.131.1). Any skepticism, however, must be inferred from equivocal evidence. When Herodotus describes an apparition using the word θῶμα (“wonder”) and related terms, it is sometimes unclear whether he is describing his astonishment at something he accepts is miraculous or his skepticism at something he thinks implausible (further Harrison 2000, 76).
This cautious distance is notably absent in stories of dream apparitions. No sources are provided, for example, in the account of the dream which announces Hipparchus’ death (5.56). In the most infamous divine apparitions of the Histories—where a figure commands the unwilling Xerxes and Artabanus to proceed with the abandoned plan to attack Greece—the divinity of the dream is tested by the skeptical and rationalistic Artabanus. Not only is the dream proven divine, this version of events is taken for granted in the later dialogue at ABYDOS (7.47.1; the source attribution at 7.12.1, then, seems not to indicate that the narrator thinks the tale dubious). In this case Herodotus builds direct divine‐mortal communication mimetically into his Histories in a manner reminiscent of the omniscient epic narrator (cf. e.g., Hom. Il. 2.5–15, Od. 6.13–47). One reason for Herodotus’ more accommodating approach to dreams in general is perhaps that these form the dramatic hinge for some of his novellas, which, in turn, tend to be less source‐conscious than the rest of his narrative. Herodotus’ acceptance of dream‐apparitions may, however, simply be due to a greater familiarity with the phenomenon in Greek culture (today, too, dreams remain much more common than waking visions).
Ultimately, Herodotus gives us no reason to doubt his belief in the possibility that gods or heroes might appear in visible form to waking witnesses (further Harrison 2000, 91–92). He reports several stories of anthropomorphic epiphanies without a hint of skepticism (see esp. 8.37.2–38, witnessed by a host of Persian troops and accepted by the Delphians), clearly considers the direct intervention of an individual god in battle plausible (9.65.2; cf. 9.100.2), and never categorically dismisses anthropomorphic epiphanies, despite outspokenly rejecting other types of divine mortal interaction, for instance sex between mortals and gods (1.182; 4.5.1, 11.1; 6.53.1). Whatever our conclusions about Herodotus’ own beliefs, the Histories contains a wealth of evidence for the stories of epiphanies which circulated in classical Greece about relatively recent historical events, and shows that these were particularly connected with traumatic occurrences and warfare. This impression is further confirmed by epigraphic sources (see Pritchett 1979, 12–14; Graf 2004).
SEE ALSO: Fate; Helen; Gods and the Divine; Religion, Greek; Religion, Herodotus’ views on; thōmata
REFERENCES
1 Graf, Fritz. 2004. “Trick or Treat? On Collective Epiphanies in Antiquity.” ICS 29: 111–30.
2 Harrison, Thomas. 2000. Divinity and History: The Religion of Herodotus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3 Petridou, Georgia. 2015. Divine Epiphany in Greek Literature and Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
4 Pfister, Friedrich. 1924. “Epiphanie.” RE Suppl. 4, 277–323.
5 Pritchett, W. Kendrick. 1979. The Greek State at War, Part III: Religion. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
6 Versnel, Henk. 1987. “What Did Ancient Man See When He Saw a God? Some Reflections on Greco‐Roman Epiphany.” In Effigies Dei: Essays on the History of Religions, edited by Dirk Van Der Plaas, 42–55. Leiden: Brill.
APRIES (Gk. Ἀπρίης, ὁ; Eg. W͗˒ḥ‐ib‐r˓)
MARCUS ZIEMANN
The Ohio State University
Apries was the fourth pharaoh of the Saite (26th) Dynasty of EGYPT (Wahibre, r. 589–570 BCE, died probably in 568/7), the son and successor of PSAMMIS (Psamtik II). He was succeeded by the usurper AMASIS.
Herodotus states that Apries was one of the most fortunate of the Egyptian pharaohs (2.161), but he does not discuss the invasion of Egypt in 582 by the Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar II. This invasion, however, did not result in the CONQUEST of Egypt or apparently any significant or long‐lived foreign domination of the country. It was prompted by Apries’ continuation of the Saites’ political and military meddling in SYRIA and Palestine. Herodotus (2.161) and Diodorus Siculus (1.68) both discuss Apries’ successful campaigns in Palestine. Diodorus also says that he campaigned successfully against CYPRUS. Nothing else is known about Apries’ reign until its last few years.
Apries led a campaign against CYRENE (c. 571–570) but it ended disastrously (Hdt. 2.161–69). The Egyptian warrior‐caste revolted against Apries under the leadership of Amasis, a general under Apries’ father Psammis who led a successful campaign against ETHIOPIA. While the native Egyptian troops rallied to Amasis as the new pharaoh, Apries retained the loyalty of his Carian and Ionian MERCENARIES (30,000, according to Herodotus). Apries’ ARMIES were defeated and Amasis (officially) became the next pharaoh. While Herodotus narrates the decisive battles at MOMEMPHIS and Apries’ death by strangulation at the hands of the Egyptians as all part of the same revolt in 570, the modern scholarly consensus differs. It seems that Apries survived the revolt until 568/7, when he attempted to stage a counter‐REBELLION to regain his power. He died in the fighting by drowning.
Herodotus states that despite the Egyptians’ hatred of Apries, he was still buried with the other Saite pharaohs in SAIS (2.169). This assertion is our primary evidence for the ancestral tomb of the Saite rulers, since Sais is too damaged to confirm this fact archaeologically.
It is commonly believed that the Egyptian pharaoh Hophra mentioned by the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah (44:30) is to be equated with Apries (Eg. W͗˒ḥ‐ib‐r˓), given Jeremiah’s connection of Hophra with Nebuchadnezzar II and mention of his death at the hands of his enemies.
SEE ALSO: Burial Customs; Calasiries; Caria; Hermotybies; Near Eastern History; Patarbemis; Stratopeda
FURTHER READING
1 Dodson, Aidan. 2012. Afterglow of Empire: Egypt from the Fall of the New Kingdom to the Saite Renaissance. Cairo: American