MAN AND ANIMAL IN SEVERAN ROME

The Roman sophist Claudius Aelianus, born in Praeneste in the late

second century ce, spent his career cultivating a Greek literary per-
sona. Aelian was a highly regarded writer during his own lifetime, and
his literary compilations would be influential for a thousand years
and more in the Roman world. This book argues that the De natura
animalium, a miscellaneous treasury of animal lore and Aelian’s great-
est work, is a sophisticated literary critique of Severan Rome. Aelian’s
fascination with animals reflects the cultural issues of his day: phi-
losophy, religion, the exoticism of Egypt and India, sex, gender, and
imperial politics. This study also considers how Aelian’s interests in
the De natura animalium are echoed in his other works, the Rustic Let-
ters and the Varia historia. Himself a prominent figure of mainstream
Roman Hellenism, Aelian refined his literary aesthetic to produce a
reading of nature that is both moral and provocative.

s t e v e n d . s m i t h is Associate Professor of Classics and Compara-

tive Literature at Hofstra University. He is the author of Greek Identity
and the Athenian Past in Chariton: The Romance of Empire ().
 greek culture in the roman world

Editors
susan e. alcock, Brown University
jaś elsner, Corpus Christi College, Oxford
simon goldhill, University of Cambridge

The Greek culture of the Roman Empire offers a rich field of study. Extraordinary
insights can be gained into processes of multicultural contact and exchange, political
and ideological conflict, and the creativity of a changing, polyglot empire. During this
period, many fundamental elements of Western society were being set in place: from
the rise of Christianity, to an influential system of education, to long-lived artistic
canons. This series is the first to focus on the response of Greek culture to its Roman
imperial setting as a significant phenomenon in its own right. To this end, it will
publish original and innovative research in the art, archaeology, epigraphy, history,
philosophy, religion, and literature of the empire, with an emphasis on Greek material.

Recent titles in the series:

Women and Visual Replication in Roman Imperial Art and Culture

Jennifer Trimble
The Maeander Valley: A Historical Geography from Antiquity to Byzantium
Peter Thonemann
Greece and the Augustan Cultural Revolution
A. J. S. Spawforth
Rethinking the Gods: Philosophical Readings of Religion in the Post-Hellenistic Period
Peter Van Nuffelen
Saints and Symposiasts: The Literature of Food and the Symposium
in Greco-Roman and Early Christian Culture
Jason König
The Social World of Intellectuals in the Roman Empire: Sophists,
Philosophers, and Christians
Kendra Eshleman
Religion and Identity in Porphyry of Tyre: The Limits of Hellenism in Late Antiquity
Aaron Johnson
Syrian Identity in the Greco-Roman World
Nathaniel J. Andrade
The Sense of Sight in Rabbinic Culture: Jewish Ways of Seeing in Late Antiquity
Rachel Neis
Roman Phrygia, Culture and Society
Peter Thonemann
Homer in Stone: The Tabulae Iliacae in their Roman Context
David Petrain
MA N A N D A N I M A L I N
SEVERAN ROME
The Literary Imagination of Claudius Aelianus

STEVEN D. SMITH
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Man and animal in Severan Rome: the literary imagination
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For Dick
 Contents

List of figures page viii

Acknowledgments ix
A note on names, texts, and abbreviations xi

Introduction: Approaching the De natura animalium 

 The independent intellectual 
 Animals and agroikoi in Aelian’s Rustic Letters 
 The hazards of variety 
 The Hellenized Roman 
 Stoicism 
 Animals, divinity, and myth 
 Egypt and India 
 The sexual animal 
 Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship 
 After animals: the women of the Varia historia 
Conclusion: “Nature produces animals with many voices and
many sounds, you might say . . . ” 

Appendix: Reconstructing Aelian’s Katêgoria tou gunnidos 

Bibliography 
General index 
Index locorum 

vii
 Figures

All images were photographed by and are the property of the author.

 Septimius Severus, Julia Domna, and Geta (chiseled out)

performing a sacrifice, Arch of the Argentarii ( ce),
Rome. page 
 Temple relief from Behbeit el-Hagar, in Egypt (fourth
century bce), reused in the Temple of Isis in the Campus
Martius. Palazzo Altemps, Rome. 
 (a) Fragment of a marble slab showing a scene of celebration at
the Temple of Isis, probably the Navigium Isidis (March ),
inaugurating the seafaring season. The upper panel depicts the
cult statue of Isis (centrally positioned) flanked by sacred
baboons with ibises above them, the sacred bull Apis, and the
god Bes (far right). See Figs. b–c for details. The relief dates to
c.  ce. Palazzo Altemps, Rome. (b) Marble relief depicting
the cult statue of Isis in the Campus Martius. Detail of Fig. a.
(c) Marble relief depicting statues of sacred baboon, ibis, the
sacred bull, and the god Bes from the Temple of Isis in the
Campus Martius. Detail of Fig. a. 
 The Egyptian sacred bull, Apis, dating from the second
century bce. Found in  in fragments on the Esquiline Hill.
Palazzo Altemps, Rome. 
 Statue of a sacred baboon (the Egyptian god Thot) from the
Sarapeum in the Campus Martius, second century ce. Vatican
Museums. 
 Floor mosaic depicting a scene from the Nile, second
century ce. Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome. 
 Bust of Septimius Severus. Musei Capitolini, Rome. 
 Bust of Caracalla. Musei Capitolini, Rome. 
 Bust of Elagabalus. Musei Capitolini, Rome. 

viii
 Acknowledgments

A number of colleagues who read this book either in whole or in part

at various stages in its development or who have lent me advice and
encouragement along the way deserve mention here: Stephanie Cobb,
Ellen Finkelpearl, Hunter Gardener, Jeffrey Henderson, Owen Hodkin-
son, David Konstan, Ilaria Marchesi, Simone Marchesi, Mark Masterson,
Helen Morales, Patricia Rosenmeyer, Tim Whitmarsh, and Froma Zeitlin.
The many suggestions and comments offered by the Series Editors and
the Anonymous Reader have been invaluable. I would also like to thank
Michael Sharp and Elizabeth Hanlon of Cambridge University Press for
their help and guidance as this book came together during the editorial
process.
Early versions of parts of this book were presented at three confer-
ences in  and , and I wish to thank all of the organizers for
giving me the opportunity to present my ideas before a receptive audience:
Christopher Carey, Nick Lowe, Ed Sanders, and Chiara Thumiger (“Erôs
in Ancient Greece,” University College London, March ); Jesper Mad-
sen and Roger Rees (“Double Vision: Literary Responses to Roman Power
in the nd and rd centuries,” University of Southern Denmark, Odense,
April ); and Luca Castagnoli and Paola Ceccarelli (“Greek Memories:
Theory and Practice,” Durham University, September ). My think-
ing about Aelian, his works, and his place in Severan culture was greatly
enriched at these conferences by conversations with Betty Belfiore, Ewen
Bowie, Andrea Capra, Niko Endres, Jill Harries, Joseph Howley, Jason
König, Andrew Lear, Michele Lucchesi, Glen Most, Tessa Rajak, Olivier
Renaut, Emidio Spinelli, and Greg Woolf.
I was fortunate to be able to conduct crucial research as a Visiting
Scholar at the American Academy in Rome in the summer of  and
 as a result of two generous Faculty Research and Development Grants
from Hofstra University. I am grateful for the continued support of my
colleagues in the Department of Comparative Literature and Languages:
ix
x Acknowledgments
Pellegrino D’Acierno, Tammy Gales, George Greaney, Barbara Lekatsas,
Rob Leonard, Irene Siegel, Patricia Welch, Zuyan Zhou, and especially my
friend and comrade in Classics, Ilaria Marchesi. Ann Burlein, Tony Dardis,
Neil Donahue, Bernie Firestone, Warren Frisina, Vicente Lledo-Guillem,
and David Powell all deserve special thanks for their encouragement and
support.
I wish also, of course, to thank my parents, Kathleen and Steven Smith,
for everything that they have given me. Bill and Joan Wilde took keen
interest in the progress of this book over several years, for which I am
thankful. This book is dedicated to the love of my life, Dick Wilde. Finally
I wish to acknowledge all of the canine companions past and present
with whom we have shared a home: Muddy, Ralph, Frijt, Loki, and Blitz.
Without them this book would not have been possible.
 A note on names, texts, and abbreviations

Anyone who writes about Romans who wrote in Greek is faced with the
dilemma about how to refer to his or her subject, i.e. with a Greek or
a Roman name. Is our writer going to be Klaudios Ailianos or Claudius
Aelianus? I have opted for neither, choosing instead and as a compromise
the Anglicized form Aelian. Well-known writers in Greek and Latin have
been named in accordance with English convention, thus: Homer, Plato,
Euripides, Vergil, Horace, Pliny, Athenaeus, Philostratus, etc. The names
of Greek writers less well known have been transliterated without macrons,
thus: Eudemos, Nikostratos, Phularkhos, etc. Most Greek place names have
been transliterated as well without macrons (thus Keos, Knidos, Porose-
lene, etc.), but Athens, Syracuse, Thebes, etc., have retained their more
conventional spellings.
For the text of Aelian’s De natura animalium, I have followed the Teub-
ner edition of Manuela Garcı́a Valdés, Luis Alfonso Llera Fueyo, and Lucı́a
Rodrı́guez-Noriega Guillén (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, ). For
the text of the Rustic Letters, I have used Benner and Fobes’ Loeb edition
of The Letters of Alciphron, Aelian, and Philostratus (Cambridge, MA: Har-
vard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., ), though
I have also consulted the editions of Domingo-Forasté (Stuttgart and
Leipzig: Teubner, ) and Leone (Milan: Istituto editoriale Cisalpino-La
goliardica, ). For the text of the Varia historia, I have used Dilts’ edi-
tion (Leipzig: Teubner, ), though I have also consulted Wilson’s Loeb
edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ). Abbreviations
of authors and works in Greek and Latin follow the conventions in the
Greek-English Lexicon by Liddell, Scott, and Jones and in the Oxford Latin
Dictionary.

AA Antike und Abendland

AJA American Journal of Archaeology
AJPh American Journal of Philology
xi
xii A note on names, texts, and abbreviations
ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt. Berlin and
New York: De Gruyter.
ASNP Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Cl. di Lettere e
Filosofia
BICS Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of
London
CA Classical Antiquity
CJ Classical Journal
CREBM Mattingly, H. . Coins of the Roman Empire in the British
Museum, Volume : Pertinax to Elagabalus. London:
Trustees of the British Museum.
CW Classical World
GLR Garcı́a Valdés, M., Llera Fueyo, L. A., and Rodrı́guez-
Noriega Guillén, L. (eds.) . Aelianus. De Natura
Animalium. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter.
GRBS Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies
HSPh Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies
JRS Journal of Roman Studies
LSJ Liddell, H. G. and Scott, R. . A Greek–English Lexicon.
Revised and augmented by H. S. Jones. Oxford: Clarendon
Press; New York: Oxford University Press.
LTUR Steinby, E. M. (ed.) –. Lexicon Topographicum
Urbis Romae. Rome: Edizioni Quasar.
MH Museum Helveticum
RFIC Rivista di Filologia e di Istruzione Classica
RhM Rheinisches Museum für Philologie
RHR Revue de l’histoire des Religions
RIC Mattingly, H. and Sydenham, E. A. . The Roman
Imperial Coinage, Volume , Part : Pertinax to Geta.
London: Spink and Son, Ltd.
SHA Scriptores Historiae Augustae
SIFC Studi Italiani di Filologia Classica
TAPhA Transactions of the American Philological Association
 Introduction
Approaching the De natura animalium

The personality (a historical fiction, 202 CE)

It is April in the tenth year of the reign of the emperor Septimius Severus.
All Rome celebrates not just the decennalia, the festival and games marking
this ten-year anniversary, but also the emperor’s return to the city at last
after five years in the East. The theatre is packed, a buzzing hive full of
pleasure-loving drones. The whole city has turned out. There seem to be
as many Greeks, Jews, Egyptians, and Syrians as Romans – Latin is nearly
drowned out in a cacophony of Eastern tongues. It’s almost time for the
day’s big event. A great structure stands in the center of the arena, built to
look like a boat. What’s in store? Despite the mounting anticipation for
the spectacle in the arena, all eyes eventually seek out the imperial box for
a glimpse of the emperor with his family, a reassuring image, all at home
finally and presiding over their people. Do they feel at home, so far from
Africa and Syria?
There is the emperor, bearded, distinguished, a gold crown upon his
head. He sits, standing only rarely and for short periods of time. The gout
in his legs must be hurting him. They say that’s the reason he declined
when the senate offered him a triumph for his victories: he didn’t want
to have to stand the whole time in the chariot as the triumphal proces-
sion wound its way through the streets to the temple of Jupiter on the
Capitol. But we have him to thank for the new temple in honor of Lord
Sarapis.
And there beside him on his left is his wife and the mother of the
Augusti, Julia Domna. Domina Domna? I hear that her name actually
means “black” in her native tongue. She likes to talk about religion and
philosophy – who doesn’t these days? But it’s in her blood: her ancestors
are priests descended from the sun, god of us all. Heliogabal I think they
call him in Syria. Well, Helios is smiling today. It’s blazing unseasonably
hot here in the arena. Philostratus stands beside the Empress. He’s proud to


 Approaching the De natura animalium
be there, you can tell. Proud as a peacock. I suppose that could have been
me. That’s what they tell me, anyway. But that kind of display is not for
me. What is he whispering into the empress’ ear? And there are the Syrian
ladies waiting on the empress, the other Julias, Maesa and Sohaemias, her
sister and niece, I think.
On the other side of the emperor are his two sons, Antoninus and Geta,
the lion’s cubs. Energetic boys, active. They say their natures are different.
The younger one is quieter, more bookish, inquisitive. The older one has a
cruel streak. Others say they’re both equally wild. They fight. No surprise
there. Brothers do fight. Antoninus, the one they call Caracalla, is fourteen
now and has a new bride, Fulvia Plautilla. Her father, the Prefect Caius
Fulvius Plautianus, the emperor’s beloved kinsman and dearest friend since
they were boys together in Libya, sits nearby, further off to the side and
behind.
Felicitas saeculi, “good fortune of the age,” as it says on the coins with
the family portrait. Happy family. Or not. I hear rumors. But you don’t
need rumors to know that someone’s always plotting and maneuvering in
the palace. It’s dangerous. Their talons are concealed. But kings don’t listen
to wise men like they should.
Some words pass between the emperor and Plautianus, and the emperor
is evidently pleased at the spectacle that Plautianus offered earlier in the
day: sixty wild boars displayed and then hunted down to the delight
of the crowds. There was an Indian korokotas, too, a curious mix – by
some divine mystery – of tiger, lion, dog, and fox. Some say this was the
creature’s debut in Rome, but I’ve seen one before. We also had to witness
the slaughter of an elephant. There was a time when serving up that creature
for death in the arena was a risky business, as likely to elicit tears as much
as cheers from the spectators. But those days are gone. This crowd ate
it up.
It’s time for the big event now. A group of slaves approach the boat
in the center of the arena, then they climb aboard and there is some
pulling of ropes. The walls of the boat collapse and then – look! – bears,
lionesses, panthers, lions, ostriches, wild asses, bison . . . I can’t count them
all. Marvelous. I want to inspect them more closely. Many in the crowd
don’t know what they’re looking at. But we know their Greek names and
I’m ready to show off and swap stories with the friends standing beside
me, all in immaculate Attic Greek, of course. The crocodile reminds me: I
must stop by the temple of Isis in the Campus Martius to ask a question of
the priest and the attendants. We haven’t seen anything like this since they
caught that giant sea monster in the harbor of Augustus a few years ago.
 Between the statue and the library 
They made a cast of its massive body and hauled it into the hunting theatre;
when they opened it up, fifty bears came tumbling out – wonderful. But
this tops the sea monster and the bears. This has variety.
But the hunters are marching in now, and they draw their swords, and
the cheering of the crowd is deafening. They call this hunting. It’s easy to
track them down when they’re trapped in the arena.
I’ve had enough of the blood and the crowd. There’s six more days of
this.
I will write up the day’s spectacle for my Bithynian friend to include
in his history. Back to the peace and quiet of my study and my books,
my true love, my passion. My friends keep asking me the old question
if I should get married. But I like not having the distraction and all the
trouble that comes with family. Not very Roman of me, I know. But it
does make me sound like a philosopher. Anyway, my real friends keep me
company.

Between the statue and the library

Claudius Aelianus was born in Praeneste, about  km east of Rome,
between  and  ce, conservatively reckoned. This means that Aelian
was born during the reign of Marcus Aurelius and grew up and came of
age during the reign of Commodus. In April of  ce, the date of the
decennalia of Septimius Severus, he was a grown man between the ages
of  and . The year that Severus died ( ce), Aelian was between 
and  years old, and in that same year Caracalla killed his brother Geta
and became sole emperor of Rome. Aelian was between  and  years
old when Elagabalus, son of Julia Sohaemias and grand-nephew of Julia
Domna, became emperor in  ce. A student of the sophist Pausanias,
who held the chair of rhetoric at Rome from c. – ce, Aelian became
 This date is established from the notice in Philostratus’ biography of Aelian in the Lives of the Sophists,
where we learn that Aelian lived more than sixty years. That work also provides a terminus post quem
for Aelian’s death: the assassination of Elagabalus in  ce (presuming, of course, that that emperor
and not Caracalla was the target of his invective, the Indictment of the Little Woman). Publication
of the Lives of the Sophists, the terminus ante quem for Aelian’s death, may itself be dated to between
 and  ce (its addressee, Gordian I, was consul for the second time in – ce and died as
emperor in  ce; Jones  has, however, argued that Philostratus’ addressee was Gordianus III,
dating the VS between  and ). By a conservative reckoning, then, Aelian died between 
and  ce. Counting backward “more than sixty years” conservatively (i.e.  years) from  yields
a birth date for Aelian in ; counting backward from  yields a birth date in . Cf. Kindstrand
:  and Schettino : –.
 There is even a fleeting reminiscence of Commodus at fr.  Hercher,  Domingo-Forasté.
 Philostr. VS ; on the dating of Pausanias with regard to his tenure of the chair of rhetoric at
Athens, see Avotins : –.
 Approaching the De natura animalium
famous for his expertise and fluency in Attic Greek, the premier literary
language of his age. Aelian had official duties as a priest and he was a
distinguished man of letters in Rome. He was the author of a collection
of Rustic Letters; a collection of narratives On the Character of Animals;
another collection called the Varied History; two religious works, On Prov-
idence and On Manifestations of the Divine; a political invective against
the emperor Elagabalus that he called Indictment of the Little Woman;
and possibly some epigrams that were once inscribed on hermai, or com-
memorative stone columns, that decorated the grounds of what may have
been his suburban villa in Rome. There may have been more. He was
thought for a time to be a member of the literary “circle” of the empress
Julia Domna, but the notion of a formalized “circle” at the imperial court
has now been sufficiently dismissed, and there is anyway no evidence for
Aelian’s involvement in such a salon. Aelian was nevertheless fortunate to
be admired in his own lifetime, and his literary works – all in Greek –
would be influential for a thousand years and more in the Roman
world.
This book is concerned primarily with Aelian’s collection On the Char-
acter of Animals, known in Latin as De natura animalium (henceforth NA).
Although the title of Aelian’s book is similar to the title of a book by
Aristotle, the Historia animalium, Aelian and Aristotle could not be more
different. Aelian is not a philosopher, but a moralist and a literary stylist.
Whereas Aristotle’s work was part of a larger, rigorously intellectual project
of classification and causal explanation, Aelian wrote a different kind of
natural history, a scholarly compendium suiting the literary tastes of his age
and appealing directly to the pleasures of reading. When Aristotle inquires
into the unique nature of the elephant, asp, or octopus, he asks what specific
principles determine the development and behavior of each. Aelian instead
tells stories. We hear of a troupe of elephants in Rome that could dance and
perform pantomimes. We hear about an Egyptian boy beloved by an asp
that spoke to him in dreams. And we hear about a monstrous octopus that
 Inscriptiones Graecae .. See Bowie  and Wilson : –.
 On a fragmentary inscription possibly by Aelian, see Moretti . The Rustic Letters, the NA, and
the poems (at least the ones that we know of ) have survived. Much of the VH has survived in a
fragmentary version. On Providence and On Manifestations of the Divine (if they were indeed separate
works) survive only in a few fragments. The Indictment of the Little Woman is a lost work, its title
known only from Philostratus’ biography of Aelian in the Lives of the Sophists, though some fragments
by Aelian may well be extracts from the political diatribe (see Appendix).
 Münscher :  and Platnauer : –.
 Bowersock : – and Whitmarsh : –.
 See Kindstrand  and : –.
 Between the statue and the library 
lived off the coast of Italy. The pleasure of reading draws us in, seducing
us. But there is also an edge to many of the stories, as Aelian’s honeyed
prose becomes a medium for provoking his readers’ contemplation of the
failures of human morality. Generally disenchanted with human society,
Aelian is a personality at odds with the world of Severan Rome. A crucial
mechanism for seduction, making the reader vulnerable for Aelian’s moral
criticism, is the work’s rejection of systematic classification. There is no
order to the sequence of chapters within the seventeen books of the NA,
and that disorder was deliberate.
Each chapter of the NA offers itself as a polished literary fragment, but
there are no obvious clues and no overarching narrative voice telling us how
to put those fragments together, to make meaningful connections from one
chapter to the next. Am I to read the book from cover to cover, as a linear
activity, experiencing each chapter in approximately the same sequence that
Aelian wrote or arranged them? Or am I to pick and choose at random or
flip back and forth between different chapters in a semantic drift, browsing
through the NA as if it were a kind of hypertextual jungle? The NA –
a text whose “openness” is representative of the period’s anthologizing
aesthetic – accommodates a variety of approaches.
The anecdotal prose fragment, Aelian’s favored literary form, raises inter-
esting questions. While pleasing and provocative in and of themselves,
Aelian’s fragments – qua fragments, molecular bits of a literary culture –
may be hooked up, fitted into, and used in a variety of different contexts.
They are stories or factoids ready to be swapped at a moment’s notice, the
perfect moment, in a display of erudite learning. And stories about nature
and animals were the particularly favored gems of paideia, the sophis-
tic education of the Imperial age, as we see clearly from the evidence of
contemporary narratives. In Achilles Tatius’ romance, the hero-narrator
Kleitophon uses his knowledge of animal mating habits and the power
of attraction in nature to seduce his beloved Leukippe, and Kleitophon’s
slave-accomplice Saturos engages in a battle of wits with the trouble-
some attendant Konops by manipulating animal fables. The characters of
Philostratus’ Life of Apollonios of Tyana, too, take every opportunity to
share their wisdom about animals and nature. The same writer’s Eikones
neatly illustrates the intense contemporary fascination with the intertwin-
ing of human morality and animal characters when his sophistic narrator

 On the ordering of chapters in the NA, see GLR xx–xxi.  Thus Sharrock : .
 On the “open” work, see Eco .  Cf. Parker :  and DuBois : .
 Approaching the De natura animalium
offers a description of a painting of Aesop surrounded by his muthoi: the
fox leads a chorus of actors with a combination of human and animal
bodies.
The accumulated lore and traditions about animals therefore represent a
discourse, a vast storehouse of fragmentary knowledge, ready to be drawn
upon when needed by the practitioners of sophistic skill. Aelian even
describes his collection of animal narratives as a keimêlion, some treasure
stored up as valuable. The structural variety of the work, an apparently
random jumble of anecdotal fragments ready for the sophist’s use, seems to
anticipate the stylistic disorder favored by Roland Barthes in his own lyrical
collection of fragments from the discourse of the lover: “Throughout any
love life, figures occur to the lover without any order, for on each occa-
sion they depend on an (internal or external) accident. Confronting each
of these incidents (what ‘befalls’ him), the amorous subject draws on the
reservoir (the thesaurus?) of figures, depending on the needs, the injunc-
tions, or the pleasures of his image-repertoire.” Barthes and Aelian both
conjure the fragmentary nature of discourse, but whereas Barthes empha-
sizes its “non-syntagmatic, non-narrative” quality, Aelian attempts to exert
a centripetal force to discursive fragmentation: the disparate pieces of the
discourse on animals are held together by repeated references to some
transcendent divine power and by the insistent positing of a speaking,
assembling, authorizing “I.” Thus, the NA, not unlike the “false multiplic-
ity” described by Deleuze and Guattari, reflects only the illusion of the
chaos and disorder of discourse unmoored from a contextualizing subject.
The morally assertive and reassertive “I” of the work’s preface and epilogue,
as well as the text’s continual return to “nature’s divine mystery,” strongly
suggest an identity or vector seeking a way through the tangle.
From a different perspective, though, the subject is the tangle itself, if
we accept that what Aelian depicts in the NA has more in common with
Foucault’s concept of the subject as a “composite form” than with the
Cartesian subject of modern philosophy. Aelian’s assertive and reassertive
“I” may then be understood as an effect that arises from the intersection of
the multiple discourses on animals, ethnicity, marriage, family life, philoso-
phy, exoticism, sex, pleasure, the body, kingship, women, etc. Aelian’s book
 Ach. Tat. .–, .–; Philostr. VA ..–, ., ..–., .., ., .., .–, .–,
.., .; and Philostr. Im. .. On animals in Achilles Tatius and Philostratus, see Morales ,
Flinterman , and Demoen and Praet . On the anecdote in literary culture of the second
and third centuries, see Goldhill a. On Philostratus, the author of the VA and Im., see Bowie
. On animal fables in Greek and Roman culture, see Van Dijk , Henderson , and
Kurke .
 Barthes : –.  Deleuze and Guattari : .  Bonnafous-Boucher : .
 Between the statue and the library 
is therefore not just a figure for the disappearance of the author amid the
fragmentation and disorder of a literary tradition, but a compelling illus-
tration of the tenuousness of a singular authority as it struggles to assert
itself, constantly at risk of being overwhelmed by the chorus of voices from
the past. König and Whitmarsh have rightly stressed that Aelian’s NA
and other such compilatory texts are “virtuoso” performances of “mastery
in the spheres of research, synthesis and exposition. It is not that the author
recedes in such texts, more that the role of the author is reconceived: new
virtues are located in the arts of editing and the organisation of pre-existing
units of knowledge.” This is generally true, but Aelian’s countercultural
literary persona and his anxiety over his place in society as well as in the
canon make the question of the “receding author” a salient point of the
NA. To put it another way, the NA is suspended between the individual
and the multiplicity, the statue and the library.
Aelian’s turn away from a successful career as a public speaker, denying
himself a life appearing in imperial palaces, is a sign that he has yielded
to his own becoming minor in the sophistic world of Severan Rome. I
use the phrase “becoming minor” here in the sense meant by Deleuze and
Guattari and described by Leonard Lawlor as an “affect of shame at being
a man, at being human all too human, with our oppressions, our clichés,
our opinions, and our desires.” Aelian is not the figure speaking at the
center of the auditorium. He is off to the side of the crowd, or alone in
his study, writing. His sense of self-separation is reinforced by his choice
of subject: having become minor, Aelian subsequently moves closer to
becoming animal, and hence to becoming worldly. He may not be a slave,
as he proudly asserts in the epilogue of the NA, but he nonetheless identifies
with the “irrational” beasts, the most abject figures of the arena. And he
begins writing like an animal. He wants to speak with foreign tongues,
with animal tongues, and to make animal sounds. His book invites
the polyphony of the world. He wants to write not the grand, totalizing

 Cf. Gunderson : .  König and Whitmarsh : .  Lawlor : .
 On “becoming minor” and “becoming animal” see Deleuze and Guattari : –. On a
critique of Deleuze and Guattari and on “becoming worldly,” see Haraway : –, –.
On “becoming” (γίγνεσθαι) as a metamorphosis that need not be physical or entail a change of
appearance, see Buxton : .
 For Aelian’s humanization of the animal, animalization of the human, and problematization of the
slave, cf. Agamben : –.
 See Lawlor  on writing as the crucial signifier of a successful “becoming animal” in the
sense described by Deleuze and Guattari. On the intertwining of the theme of slavery, animal
narratives, and transgressive/transformative writing in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses and the Vita Aesopi,
see Finkelpearl .
 NA ..
 Approaching the De natura animalium
narrative of Roman imperial Hellenism, but Hellenism as translation. The
book is a meadow or garland. But it is also the twisting and turning of
tunnels dug by subterranean creatures, potentially undermining established
structures. It is true that Aelian imposes a conservative morality on many
of the animal narratives that he presents, but this voice should not be
considered the final moral authority of the NA. The hermeneutic “I” that
seeks a meaningful way through the disorder of the text opens itself up
to the possibility of its own transformation. The reader who delves deeply
into Aelian’s book confronts issues of culture, philosophy, divinity, gender,
desire, and power – the stakes are high. Aelian’s contemporaries may have
praised him for maintaining a conservative Roman character (was there a
statue of Aelian in Rome?). But Aelian’s text postulates also a reader who will
fly from that conservative authority and burrow her way into the library,
perhaps through some surprising point of entry, seeking metamorphosis.

Points of entry
In Chapter , I consider the evidence for Aelian’s countercultural persona,
most significantly what the author has to say about and for himself in the
crucial preface and epilogue to the NA. I also look at Philostratus’ biography
of Aelian in the Lives of the Sophists and the notice in the tenth-century
Byzantine encyclopedia known as the Souda. Reading this evidence closely,
I address important questions about Aelian’s self-positioning within the
ongoing philosophical debate about the relationship between animals and
humans, his ethnic background, and the claim in the Souda that he served
as high priest.
Aelian’s Rustic Letters are the subject of Chapter . In reading these finely
crafted literary epistles I focus on the rustic subjectivity of Aelian’s Athenian
farmers and how they define themselves by their relation to animal life,
sometimes reaffirming the division between human and animal and at
other times blurring that distinction. Aelian’s interest in the intertwining
of human and animal in the Athenian countryside as well as the fragmentary
collection as a literary genre reflects similar interests in Aelian’s other works.
The structural disorder of the NA is the subject of Chapter . The
aesthetic of poikilia – “variety,” “dappling,” “polychromaticism” – was well
established in Greek literature by the third century ce. But Aelian’s affinity
for poikilia is attended by anxieties that his compositional style impugns
both his intellectual integrity and his masculinity. I attempt to understand

 NA . and .. Cf. Deleuze and Guattari : –.

 Points of entry 
Aelian’s defensiveness through a survey of the development of poikilia in
prose literature from the classical period to Aelian’s day and through a
consideration of how he attempts to respond to his imagined critics.
In the fourth chapter I deal more deeply with the question of Aelian’s
Roman identity and his adoption of a Greek literary persona. The chapter
begins with a close reading of the programmatic passage that begins the
collection, on a curious species of philhellenic bird that dwells off the coast
of Italy. I then gauge the significance of Aelian’s careful distancing of himself
from Roman culture in the NA, but also consider how he engages with two
central institutions of Roman culture, namely the animal spectacle of the
arena and married domestic life.
Chapter  addresses the question of Aelian’s Stoicism. After sketching
the beliefs of Stoicism as understood in the third century ce, I describe
how the NA both adheres to and departs from Stoic doctrine. Of particular
interest is the tension between Stoicism (a philosophy that encourages
sober, rational reflection on the natural world) and the paradoxography of
Aelian’s literary book of animal wonders.
Aelian’s relationship to the divine, an important facet of Stoicism, is
the subject of Chapter . I look at what role animals play in the various
depictions of gods and goddesses from different cultures in the NA. Here,
too, the intersection with literature is a focus, as Aelian’s most creative
engagement with the divine is seen in his elaboration, his writing of myth,
even while myth itself is problematized against an intellectual background
that privileges philosophical truth.
In Chapter , I look at Aelian’s contribution to the contemporary fasci-
nation with Egypt and India, his depictions of which occur in two signifi-
cant groups of roughly sequential chapters within the otherwise disordered
structure of the NA. In the Egyptian and Indian groupings of the NA, the
discourse on animals is tightly intertwined with cultural exoticism, and yet
in many ways these exotic “other” worlds serve as a mirror for the cultural
landscape of Severan Rome.
The prominence of sex and physical desire in the NA, as they pertain
to both animals and humans, is the subject of Chapter . After a detailed
consideration of the complex sexual morality of the NA, I deal with Aelian’s
recurring interest in transgender phenomena and the intersex bodies of
certain animals, subjects relevant to Aelian’s own gendered persona in
the NA. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the collection’s many
narratives of interspecies eroticism, especially those potentially unsettling
stories where humans are depicted in the erotic embrace of nonhuman
animals.
 Approaching the De natura animalium
In Chapter , I address Aelian’s treatment of kingship in the NA through
an analysis of how he manipulates the symbolic associations of bees, lions,
and eagles. Even if there is no explicit engagement with Severan politics
in the NA, we know from his diatribe against Elagabalus that Aelian was
interested in the figure of the emperor, and his chapters on the kings of
animals give us some insight into Aelian’s political thought. The chapter
concludes with a look at how different animals – goose, swan, octopus, and
crow – deal with tyranny and how the political strategies of those animals
might have been relevant to a writer of natural history in the age of the
Severans.
In the final chapter, I move beyond the NA and consider the Varied
History as Aelian’s attempt to engage more directly with human morality.
In the two longest chapters of the VH, Aelian offers elaborate narratives of
two women, the Persian concubine Aspasia of Phokaia and Atalante, the
virgin huntress of myth. This turn towards complex, compelling women
reflects Aelian’s ongoing interest in a critique of masculine ethics in Greco-
Roman culture of the third century ce. But I contend that these stories
also prompt reflection about what a different ethics would look like and
what different kinds of subjects it would produce.
 c h a p te r 1

The independent intellectual

Although the NA offers itself as an assemblage of fragmented voices, a

strong, self-assured voice nevertheless asserts and reasserts itself at the
beginning and end of the work. The collection’s luxurious, expansive poik-
ilia is thus framed by the image of the author as a singular literary persona.
And so, before delving into the rich collection of diversions in the NA, it is
necessary first to become acquainted as best we can with Claudius Aelianus
himself, or at least the rhetorically engineered image of the author that
Aelian projects.
The preface and epilogue of the NA do not offer much in the way
of an autobiography. Instead of details of birth and parentage, notices of
family, friends, associates, patrons, students, and the like, what we get is
an impressionistic intellectual self-portrait. This self-portrait is not as a
mirror of reality – it doesn’t tell us who the author really is – but rather
a constructed literary persona that can give us some sense of what kind
of personality third-century readers might have reasonably believed to be
behind a book like the NA. The writer Philostratus, one of Aelian’s con-
temporaries, provides some important biographical details in his famous
book, the Lives of the Sophists, and there are also some tantalizing details in
the tenth-century Souda lexicon. More will be said below about the life of
Aelian in Philostratus’ biography and about the brief entry in the Souda. To
begin, however, it is appropriate to consider what Aelian has to say about
himself and his work in his own words.

Self-portraiture in the preface and epilogue of the NA

Why animals? Aelian is explicit at the very beginning of the prologue
that his fascination with animals arises from their numerous, curiously
human-like qualities. Human wisdom and justice, our inclination to care
 On Aelian’s self-presentation in the preface and epilogue of the NA, see also Stamm : – and
Whitmarsh : –.


 The independent intellectual
for our young and our parents, our ability to provide for ourselves, and
to protect ourselves from attack – these, says Aelian, are perhaps not
surprising (παράδοξον ἴσως οὐδέν, pr., p. , lines –). Humans, after all,
are endowed with reason (λόγος). The fact that animals, however, creatures
that are supposed to lack reason (τὰ ἄλογα), do in fact have a share in virtue
(ἀρετή) – “this,” says Aelian, “is indeed truly amazing” (τοῦτο ἤδη μέγα,
–). Animals are interesting, in other words, because they are not mere
beasts, contrary to human classification of them as such. They are, rather,
endowed by nature (κατὰ φύσιν, ) with all of the qualities that make
humans human, and it is for that reason that they deserve our attention.
Aelian therefore begins by evoking a debate prominent in philosophical
circles since the Hellenistic period. On one side of the debate stood the
Stoics, who, despite their belief in the all-encompassing power of nature,
argued that animals did not possess logos, the capacity for reason that
characterized humans and set them apart from the rest of nature’s creations.
On the other side of the debate were Platonists who argued that animals
did possess logos and were therefore deserving of proper treatment and
consideration by humans. The arguments on both sides are articulated in
the opening sequence of Plutarch’s dialogue that poses the question: Which
Are More Clever, Land or Sea Animals? (Πότερα τῶν ζῴων φρονιμώτερα,
τὰ χερσαῖα ἢ τὰ ἔνυδρα, Mor. b–c). In that dialogue, Plutarch
poses a complex ethical problem: even if we should accept that animals are
sentient creatures capable of the same capacity for thought and emotion as
humans, will that knowledge change the way we think and behave? Aelian
will not be concerned with the development of a philosophical argument as
Plutarch clearly is in his dialogue. For Aelian, the mass of evidence that he
collects from his scholarly activity would clearly seem to refute the position
held by the Stoics. And yet for as much as Aelian celebrates the virtue
of animals, he consistently refers to them in traditional language as aloga,
“irrational creatures” or “creatures lacking logos.” It is therefore sometimes
difficult to construe where Aelian stands in the debate on whether animals
 Cf. Philostratus’ description of Aesopic fables: “everything about human beings has been turned into
a fable by Aesop, and he has given a share of logos to the beasts for the sake of logos” (Αἰσώπῳ πάντα
τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐκμεμύθωται, καὶ λόγου τοῖς θηρίοις μεταδέδωκε λόγου ἕνεκεν, Im. ..). For
the authorship of the Imagines, see Elsner : .
 Arr. Epict. ..–, .–. Other loci classici on the debate, from Alcmaeon to Augustine, can now
be found, with bibliography, in Newmyer : –. See also Sorabji : –, Gilhus :
–, Newmyer : –, and Newmyer . Philo’s dialogue On Whether Dumb Animals
Possess Reason (c.  ce) is now extant only in Armenian translation; see Terian .
 This dialogue is also known by its Latin titles, Terrestriane an aquatilia animalia sint callidiora or De
sollertia animalium.
 See Hübner : –.
 Self-portraiture in the NA 
possess logos: did he conform with Stoic doctrine or not? And to what
degree was Aelian influenced by other schools of philosophical thought,
including Cynicism, Pythagoreanism, or even Epicureanism? I address the
question of Aelian’s Stoicism fully in Chapter , but for now it suffices
to say that Aelian is, like Plutarch, interested in the proper treatment of
animals and the rhetorical use of animals to explore and critique human
morality.
Whereas in the preface Aelian begins by positioning himself within
a long philosophical debate about animals, he begins the epilogue by
addressing his seemingly inexhaustible capacity for scholarly compilation.
Here he proudly declares that “passion for learning, a passion that is both an
intimate companion and part of my nature, inflames me” (ἔρως με σοφίας
ὁ σύνοικός τε καὶ ὁ συμφυὴς ἐξέκαυσεν, ep., p. , lines –). Aelian is
of course here playing with the very notion of philosophia, suggesting that
he is a philosopher, or philosophos, in the most literal sense, i.e. a “lover of
wisdom.” But that he does not use the words philosophia or philosophos here
is an implication of difference from that pursuit and title respectively. Erôs,
the love by which Aelian claims to be figuratively burnt, is a very different
thing, after all, from philia, the love that inspires the philosopher. Erôs is
more intense, more passionate, transgressive even, producing at times a
dangerous madness, as he himself shows us in his many descriptions of
nature’s more erotic creatures. It matters too that Aelian represents this erôs
not as an external, corrupting force, but internally as an integral part of his
character, part of his human nature. Aelian’s varied relationship with and
conceptions of erôs, relevant to the gods, humans, and all creatures living
in the natural world, form an important component of this study.
Aelian then proceeds to distance himself from a segment of Rome’s
intellectual community:
οὐκ ἀγνοῶ δὲ ἄρα ὅτι καὶ τῶν εἰς χρήματα ὁρώντων ὀξὺ καὶ τεθηγμένων
ἐς τιμάς τε καὶ δυνάμεις τινὲς καὶ πᾶν τὸ φιλόδοξον δι’ αἰτίας ἕξουσιν, εἰ
τὴν ἐμαυτοῦ σχολὴν κατεθέμην καὶ εἰς ταῦτα, ἐξὸν καὶ ὠφρυῶσθαι καὶ ἐν
ταῖς αὐλαῖς ἐξετάζεσθαι καὶ ἐπὶ μέγα προήκειν πλούτου. (NA, ep., p. ,
lines –)
And I am not unaware indeed that even of those who have a sharp eye
for money and who have been whetted for honors and influence and every
ambition, some will find fault if I set aside my free time even for these things
[the study of animals], when it is possible to raise my brow in arrogance and
to appear in palaces and to come into great wealth.

 Cf. Aristid. .., .., ...

 The independent intellectual
Aelian sketches a vivid picture of Rome’s professional intellectuals as greedy
and jealous, their eyes always scanning for new sources of income and a
step up the social ladder. He sees them as learned weapons, sharpened
(τεθηγμένων) like swords or spear-points for advancement in the petty
skirmishes that constitute their careers. Aelian implies that, by contrast,
his scholarly pursuits are not motivated by a desire for notoriety or for
monetary gain – occupying his free time in the pursuit of the wisdom of
animals is not so ambitious, though writing a seventeen-book miscellany
suggests its own kind of ambition. Aelian’s peers not only disdain his
obsession with animal lore: they resent that he himself has disdained the
opportunities for fame, wealth, and influence that they so obviously crave.
Though he defines himself by an intellectual erôs and not by the more
sober love of wisdom that characterizes the ideal philosopher, Aelian’s
self-portrait here appeals to the traditional persona of the philosopher.
Extending back to Socrates, this character type is a social pariah whose
deeper understanding of the world leads him to pursue his own unique path
in life, with the result that he becomes an exceptional figure, fascinating
but also incomprehensible to those around him. Against this background,
Aelian would have his readers suppose it odd that so talented a figure would
concern himself with foxes, lizards, beetles, snakes, and lions: “I have no
desire to be numbered among these wealthy men and to be measured
against them” (ἀλλὰ οὔ μοι φίλον σὺν τοῖσδε τοῖς πλουσίοις ἀριθμεῖσθαι
καὶ πρὸς ἐκείνους ἐζετάζεσθαι, –).
What he does desire, on the contrary, is to be ranked among the wise
poets (ποιηταὶ σοφοί, NA ep., p. , lines –) and among the men
clever at inspecting and examining nature’s secrets (ἄνδρες φύσεως ἀπόρ-
ρητα ἰδεῖν τε ἅμα καὶ κατασκέψασθαι δεινοί, –) and among the
historians who go the farthest in their inquiry (συγγραφεῖς τῆς πείρας ἐς
τὸ μήκιστον προελθόντες, ). For achieving that kind of glory, he says,
he is a better counsel for himself than the judgment of the multitude. Of
particular interest in this passage is the way in which Aelian figures himself
as appealing to multiple literary traditions at once. He is not a philosopher,
for his own love of wisdom is more intense than that of philosophy, and
yet he also depicts himself as fulfilling certain aspects of the philosopher’s
character type, especially in terms of his refusal to live according to the
normative standards of the community. The NA is certainly not poetry,
but Aelian would like to associate himself with the ranks of the great poets,

 Cf. frs.  and  Hercher;  and  Domingo-Forasté, perhaps from the prefatory remarks of one
of Aelian’s lost works.
 Self-portraiture in the NA 
and a group of six epigrams from a pair of herms of Homer and Menander
attest to Aelian’s poetic aspirations: discovered near the Porta Trigemina
in Rome, the herms possibly decorated the grounds of Aelian’s suburban
villa. The reference to men who are clever at looking at and examining
nature’s secrets suggests writers of natural science, among whom Aristotle
looms large. And while the NA does concern itself with a display of the
animal kingdom in all its varieties, the curiosities and delightful narratives
of Aelian’s book depart significantly from Aristotle’s more objective, ana-
lytical project. Third, Aelian would like to rank himself among the great
historians, but the NA hardly follows the pattern of the famous historical
narratives that Aelian probably has in mind. This multifaceted approach,
appreciative of and combining multiple literary traditions, is consistent
with the overall variegated structure of the NA, about which I will say
more in Chapter . And so while Aelian clearly has literary ambitions, he
distinguishes them from the ambitions of his contemporaries: “For I would
prefer the survival of at least one bit of my educated learning rather than
the celebrated money and possessions of the very wealthy” (βουλοίμην γὰρ
ἂν μάθημα ἓν γοῦν πεπαιδευμένον περιγενέσθαι μοι ἢ τὰ ᾀδόμενα τῶν
πάνυ πλουσίων χρήματά τε ἅμα καὶ κτήματα, –). If, however, Aelian
did in fact own a villa just outside of Rome (the evidence for which rests
purely on the assertion of Fulvio Orsini and Pirro Ligorio), then that
would be a good indication of just how wealthy the writer from Praeneste
was.
After an impassioned defense of the compositional methodology of the
NA (which I address in Chapter ), Aelian then voices a personal aside
about the living creatures that he has taken as his subject:
εἰ δὲ τοῖς θηρατικοῖς καὶ ἓν ζῷον εὑρεῖν δοκεῖ πως εὐερμία, ἀλλὰ τό γε τῶν
τοσούτων οὐ τὰ ἴχνη, οὐδὲ τὰ μέλη συλλαβεῖν ἐγώ φημι γενναῖον, ἀλλ’
ὁπόσα ἡ φύσις ἔδωκέ τε αὐτοῖς καὶ ὅσων ἠξίωσεν ἀνιχνεῦσαι. (NA, ep.,
p. , lines –)
And although to hunters it seems good luck to find even one creature,
nevertheless I myself declare it noble to catch not the tracks or the limbs
of so many creatures, but to track down as much as nature has granted to
them and of how much nature thought them worthy.
Just as in the first section of the epilogue Aelian set himself apart from
contemporary writers and public speakers, so here Aelian contrasts his
scholarly activity with the hunt, an activity long popular in antiquity, with
 Bowie : –. On the references to Homer in the NA, see Kindstrand .
 Bowie :  and Wilson : –.
 The independent intellectual
an equally long tradition of literary representation in Greek and Roman
culture. Aelian’s statement evokes the lasting influence of hunting manuals
like Xenophon’s classic Kunêgetikos, Arrian’s work of the same title from
the second century ce, and even the Oppianic Kunêgetika by a Syrian poet
contemporary with Aelian. All these works, championing the hunt as the
leisure sport par excellence of the noble class, also tied hunting to ethics and
the development of masculine ideals, first in the Greek world of the fourth
century bce and then in the Hellenized Roman world of the Hadrianic
period and later under Caracalla. Here, however, Aelian suggests a bold
alternative: for the antiquarian scholar, hunting down surprising rare facts
in the library is more noble than tracking down real animals only to destroy
them. Aelian was not alone in the Imperial period in voicing such concern
over man’s predatory leisure sport, and yet his position must be seen against
a cultural background in which the hunt not only represented the refined
activity of an elite class, but also provided the model for the venationes, the
staged slaughter of wild beasts in the arena for the delight of the Roman
masses throughout the empire. This leads to Aelian’s closing remarks, where
he asserts, “I praise the piety of irrational creatures, but I refute the piety of
humans” (ζῴων μὲν εὐσέβειαν ἀλόγων ᾄδομεν, ἀνθρώπων δὲ εὐσέβειαν
ἐλέγχομεν, p. , lines –). Inextricably bound up with and perhaps even
unwittingly celebratory of urban Roman culture of the early third century
ce, Aelian nevertheless also fashions a literary persona that is critical of that
same cultural milieu.

Evidence from Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists

Moving from Aelian’s self-presentation in the preface and epilogue of the
NA, it is necessary to consider the only other contemporary source on
Aelian: Philostratus’ biographical sketch from the Lives of the Sophists.
The first thing we learn is that Aelian “was Roman (῾Ρωμαῖος μέν), but
he spoke and wrote Attic Greek (ἠττίκιζε δέ) just like the Athenians who
dwell in the middle of their land” (VS ). Philostratus says nothing
explicitly about whether Aelian was a former slave of non-Roman ethnic
background and had acquired his Roman name and identity from his
master, or whether Aelian was in fact born from a Roman family. The name

 On the significance of the Oppianic Kunêgetika within Severan culture, see Bartley  and Whitby
. See also Chapter .
 On the place of Philostratus and the Lives of the Sophists in the culture and literature of the period,
see especially Anderson ; Swain : –; Johnson : –; Whitmarsh : –,
–; Bowie ; Rife ; Schmitz ; Sidebottom ; and Civiletti .
 Evidence from Lives of the Sophists 
Aelianus is well attested during the imperial period, and its derivation
from the name Aelius suggests affiliation with the gens Aelia, possibly via
citizenship granted by the emperor Hadrian (Publius Aelius Hadrianus) in
the second century. But this says little about Aelian’s ethnic background, a
question that has posed a problem especially in recent scholarship.
Kindstrand supposes from the evidence of the Souda (see below) that
Aelian may have had Greek descent and took the name Claudius because
he was a freedman formerly belonging to the family of the Claudii. But
this is purely a conjecture, and Kindstrand himself is forced to admit that
we know nothing of Aelian’s descent; alternatively, the name Claudius
Aelianus may be an indication that Aelian was born into the gens Aelia
and was adopted into the family of the Claudii. Schettino, meanwhile, has
provocatively imagined a mixed Greco-Egyptian or Hellenized Egyptian
background for Aelian primarily on the basis of his interest in Ptolemaic
Egypt and in Egyptian religion. Aelian himself is not exactly forthcoming
on the topic of his ethnic and cultural identity. Though he refuses to address
it explicitly in the NA, there are two enticing hints in the VH. In the midst
of a catalogue recounting famous teachers and their disciples from Greek
myth and history, Aelian prefaces his inclusion of luminary Romans with
an apology: “so that I might make mention also of those close to me no less
close than the Greeks are close to me (and they too matter to me, if, after
all, I am Roman)” (ἵνα δὲ [μοι] καὶ τῶν ἐμοὶ προσηκόντων οὐδὲν ἧττον
ἤπερ καὶ οἱ ῞Ελληνες προσήκουσι μνήσωμαι (διαφέρει δέ μοι καὶ τούτων,
εἴ γε ῾Ρωμαῖός εἰμι, VH .). The point is not just that Aelian thinks

 In Latin literature we find: Mart. ., .; Suet. Aug. . (Aemilius Aelianus Cordubensis);
Tac. Hist. . (Plautius Aelianus pontifex), Ann. . (Pompeius Aelianus); Scriptores Historiae
Augustae Maximus . (Celsus Aelianus consul [dubious]); Ammianus Marcellinus .., ..
(Aelianus Comes); and Eutropius . and Aurelius Victor, De Caes.  (the late third-century
rebel Aelianus). The Greek sources for Aeliani of the Imperial period are: Galen, De musculorum
dissectione ad tirones b., , ,  Kühn (Aelianus Meccius; see also Ps.-Galen, De theriaca
ad Pamphilianum . Kühn); Cassius Dio .. (Lucius Lamia Aelianus; see also Phlegon, De
mirabilibus .. Giannini), ..ff. (Casperius Aelianus; see also Philostr. VA .–); Eusebius,
Historia ecclesiastica .. (Aelianus, a bishop named in the letter excommunicating and deposing
Paul of Samosata in  ce). In addition to our author, there were at least two literary Aeliani:
Aelian the Tactician and Aelian the Platonist (fragments of whose commentary on the Timaeus were
wrongly included in Domingo-Forasté’s edition of our Aelian’s fragments). There are also eleven
Aeliani in the consular lists, all from the first three centuries of the Common Era: Ti. Plautius
Silvanus Aelianus (suffect, ), Ti. Plautius Silvanus Aelianus II (suffect, ), L. Aelius Lamia
Plautius Aelianus (suffect, ), L. Roscius Aelianus Maecius Celer (suffect, ), L. Fundanius
Lamia Aelianus (consul, ), Cn. Papirius Aelianus Aemilius Tuscillus (suffect, ), L. Roscius
Aelianus (suffect, ), Cn. Papirius Aelianus (suffect, ), Cn. Papirius Aelianus (consul, ),
L. Roscius Aelianus Paculus (consul, ), L. Roscius Aelianus Paculus Salvius Iulianus (consul,
). No Aeliani appear on the consular lists after .
 Kindstrand : .  Schettino : –.
 The independent intellectual
Lucullus, Maecenas, Cicero, and Augustus are worthy heirs to the glorious
tradition of Greek wisdom; equally important is that Aelian feels the need
to mark a difference, that the inclusion of Romans within this modest
catalogue requires any explanation at all. Note also Aelian’s conditional
acknowledgment of his Roman identity: “if, after all, I am a Roman.” In
a later chapter, Aelian offers a catalogue of admirable Greek and Roman
women; of the Roman women, he says, “I was able to mention even others,
but I do not want to mention few of the Greeks, and to inundate them
with the names of Romans, so that someone does not think that I am
indulging myself because of my fatherland” (ἐδυνάμην δὲ εἰπεῖν καὶ ἄλλας,
ἀλλ’ οὐ βούλομαι τῶν μὲν ῾Ελλήνων εἰπεῖν ὀλίγας, ἐπικλύσαι δὲ τοῖς τῶν
῾Ρωμαίων ὀνόμασιν, ὡς ἂν μή μέ τις δοκοίη χαρίζεσθαι ἐμαυτῷ διὰ τὴν
πατρίδα, VH .). Aelian felt that he had to be careful of offending the
Hellenophile sensibilities of his audience. Shaping his Greek persona to fit
his Roman character required delicacy. Caroline Stamm has nevertheless
emphasized the Roman character of the VH, in which the characters from
the Greek past and Greek myth serve repeatedly as foils for specifically
Roman virtues. Returning to the evidence of the Lives of the Sophists,
we note that Philostratus strongly contrasts (μέν . . . δέ) Aelian’s Roman
identity with his remarkable facility in Attic, suggesting the linguistic
achievement of someone whose native language was not even koinê Greek,
but probably Latin.
Philostratus’ subsequent remark, however, complicates the straightfor-
ward interpretation of Aelian as descended from a Latin-speaking Roman
family and adopting a Greek persona acquired through his education.
Aelian receives the praise of the biographer for his industriousness in puri-
fying his language, despite that he dwelt in a city that used a language differ-
ent from the one he had adopted (καθαρὰν φωνὴν ἐξεπόνησε πόλιν οἰκῶν
ἑτέρᾳ φωνῇ χρωμένην, VS ). The expression that “his labor created a
language that was pure” (καθαρὰν φωνὴν ἐξεπόνησε) suggests, contrary
to the above implied distinction between his use of the Roman language
and an adopted Attic speech, that Aelian’s first language was some form of
Greek and that his rhetorical practice was an intense purification of that
language to meet the standards of the premier classical dialect. We must
infer from these statements of Philostratus the (at least) bilingual back-
ground of Rome in the early third century ce. Regardless of his parentage
and precise ethnic background, Aelian knew enough Latin to be familiar

 Stamm : .

 For the verb ἐκπονεῖν as literary creation, cf. Theoc. ., Longus pref.  (cf. ..).
 Evidence from Lives of the Sophists 
with the poetry of Ennius and with the historians Livy and Cornutus,
as two fragments makes clear. N. G. Wilson, moreover, has catalogued
what he believes to be a number of instances of linguistic interference,
where Latinisms have snuck into the Greek prose of both the NA and the
VH, concluding that “he was a typical bilingual, not equally competent in
both languages.” Further, as an active member of Rome’s multicultural
cosmopolitan world, Aelian would also have been proficient in the koinê
Greek of his day, with which he may well have addressed members of his
household staff and any number of native Greeks, Egyptians, Syrians or
other Easterners with whom he would have come into contact on a daily
basis in Rome or Praeneste. As such, Aelian’s achievement in Attic Greek
would have been a double achievement: the “pure” mode of his literary
expression distinguished him against the background of Latin, Rome’s
indigenous language, and the spoken Greek that had already become the
lingua franca of the Roman empire.
In the end, then, we are left with two possibilities. Either Aelian was
Roman by birth, or else he was non-Roman, meaning that he was Greek (à
la Kindstrand), Egyptian (à la Schettino), or something different. Though
there is no explicit self-identification as a Roman in the NA and though
he nowhere in the NA cites a Latin author, Aelian nevertheless identifies
himself as a Roman at least twice, though tentatively and with qualification,
in the later writings of the VH. The possibility remains that this later self-
identification as Roman was the result of the Constitutio Antoniniana of
 ce, which bestowed citizenship upon all free people living within
the empire. Combined, though, with his careful distancing from Roman
culture in the NA, I instead read Aelian’s gradual coming-out as Roman as
marking the very question of his Roman identity as fraught. When we try
to pin Aelian down as this or that in the NA, in a sense we are missing the
point, which is precisely Aelian’s studied evasion of certainty. Nevertheless,
even at the risk of missing Aelian’s point, I think that Aelian’s Romanness
is crucial for fully understanding the NA within its context. I take up the
question of Aelian’s Roman identity in more detail in Chapter .
Second, Philostratus praises Aelian because, even though he was called
a “sophist” by those who granted such titles, he did not believe them, nor
did he flatter his own intelligence or become arrogant by the bestowal of so
distinguished a title (VS ). On the contrary, after careful examination of

 On Ennius, see fr.  Hercher,  Domingo-Forasté; on Livy and Cornutus, see fr.  Hercher, 
Domingo-Forasté.
 Wilson : .
 The independent intellectual
himself and his abilities, he decided that he was unfit for public declama-
tion, and therefore applied himself to composition, and it was for this that
he was admired. This agrees with Aelian’s own assertion in the epilogue
of the NA that he refused the opportunity “to raise my brow in arrogance
and to appear in palaces and to come into great wealth” (καὶ ὠφρυῶσθαι
καὶ ἐν ταῖς αὐλαῖς ἐξετάζεσθαι καὶ ἐπὶ μέγα προήκειν πλούτου, NA, ep.,
p. , lines –). Philostratus says that Aelian’s overall rhetorical style
was a simplicity (ἀφέλεια) that approached the charm of Nikostratos, but
that he sometimes imitated the intensity of Dio of Prusa. While Nikos-
tratos appears only here in the Lives of the Sophists, the Souda informs us
that Nikostratos was a highly regarded rhetor during the reign of Antoni-
nus Pius (r. –) who left behind a varied literary output. In addition
to encomia for the emperor and others, Nikostratos wrote the following
works now known only by their title: Dekamuthia, Eikones, Polumuthia,
Thalattourgoi, “and very many other things.” Aelian may have found
both the style and content of Nikostratos’ works attractive. It is significant
that Philostratus could compare Aelian’s style with the intensity of Dio of
Prusa, for whom Philostratus had the utmost respect (VS –), and we
find Aelian’s prose style at its most intense in the preface and epilogue of
the NA.
But the style that characterizes the majority of the NA is the aforemen-
tioned simple style known as apheleia (ἀφέλεια), and Aelian was not alone
in his literary tastes, for apheleia was the style preferred also by Lucian,
Longus, and Philostratus. Hermogenes describes apheleia as the appropri-
ate mode for expressing thoughts that are pure, “for [thoughts] common to
all men and which pertain or seem to pertain to all and which possess noth-
ing deep or cunningly contrived, it is clear that they would be simple to us
and pure” (αἱ γὰρ ἁπάντων ἀνθρώπων κοιναὶ καὶ εἰς πάντας ἀνελθοῦσαι
ἢ δόξασαι ἀνελθεῖν καὶ μηδὲν ἔχουσαι βαθὺ μηδὲ περινενοημένον δῆλον ὡς
ἀφελεῖς ἂν εἴησαν ἡμῖν καὶ καθαραί, Id. .). Thoughts typically expressed
in the simple style are frequent in the lyrics of Anacreon, in the pastoral
poetry of Theocritus, and in the comedies of Menander, for apheleia was
considered the appropriate medium for representing the kinds of charac-
ters that appeared in those genres, i.e. women and young men in love,
cooks, gluttons, and farmers; for that same reason apheleia was generally
thought to be inappropriate for political oratory. The simple style adopted
 Johnson  suggests that Philostratus’ remarks imply that Aelian was following a pattern already
established by Demosthenes and Cicero. On the difficulty of situating Aelian within the world of
second- and third-century sophists, see Stamm : – and Prandi : –.
 Souda ν .
 Evidence from Lives of the Sophists 
by Aelian therefore appears to be non-rhetorical, a means of conjuring a
literary persona that, as Johnson puts it, “wants to convey information
in a very clear and ingenuous fashion to a person who is listening in a
sincere and unassuming way: a young person, perhaps, or an adult who
can still remember his educational experience as a child.” It should be
remembered that this stylistic simplicity is a deliberate effect. Aelian says
clearly in the preface to the NA that he has dressed up his discourses in “the
common language” (τὴν συνήθη λέξιν). The NA is, therefore, an extension
of the “character writing” described by Hermogenes (ὁ ἠθικὸς λόγος, Id.
.): the voice that speaks in the NA must not be mistaken for belonging
to Aelian-the-author, but should rather be understood as the rhetorically
engineered voice of a persona, an alter ego, a learned figure with a passion
for wisdom and an eagerness for transmitting to curious readers what he
has learned.
There follows in Philostratus’ brief biography an enlightening anecdote:
Philostratus the Lemnian once encountered Aelian as he was holding a book
that was still in his hands and reading it with intense anger, whereupon
the Lemnian asked him what he was so excited about. Aelian replied, “I
have finished my Indictment of the Little Woman – that’s my name for the
tyrant who was recently killed, because he disgraced Roman affairs with
his utter licentiousness” (ἐκπεπόνηταί μοι, ἔφη, κατηγορία τοῦ Γύννιδος,
καλῶ γὰρ οὕτω τὸν ἄρτι καθῃρημένον τύραννον, ἐπειδὴ ἀσελγείᾳ πάσῃ
τὰ ῾Ρωμαίων ᾔσχυνε, VS ). The young emperor Elagabalus (r. –
), famously reviled for his effeminacy and licentiousness, fits well the
description of the assassinated tyrant to whom Aelian refers. The anecdote
concludes with the Lemnian’s witty rejoinder, “I would have admired you
if you’d made your accusation while he was still alive,” and Philostratus’
own narrative commentary that, “indeed it’s the mark of a man to cut
down a tyrant while he’s alive, while anyone can trample on one who’s
dead” (εἶναι γὰρ δὴ τὸ μὲν ζῶντα τύραννον ἐπικόπτειν ἀνδρός, τὸ δὲ
ἐπεμβαίνειν κειμένῳ παντός).
The story offers much for a consideration of Aelian’s political engage-
ment and, by extension, his masculine persona, or in other words, how
much he measures up to Roman ideals of the “real man.” In Philostratus’
conceptualization, the instability of Aelian’s performance of masculinity
makes him vulnerable to criticism. Yet despite Philostratus’ attempt here
to diminish the reputation of the writer whom he had praised in the pre-
ceding paragraph, we must think of Aelian as a personality responsive to

 Johnson : ; see also Schmid : .– and Anderson : .
 The independent intellectual
the political landscape of the early third century and not merely as an
escapist academic concerned only with the fantastic and with curiosities
of natural history. Philostratus takes this opportunity to impugn Aelian’s
apparent hypocrisy in voicing indignation at the effeminacy of the dead
emperor, but a more sympathetic interpretation would be to see in this
episode Aelian’s rhetorical self-positioning within Rome’s new imperial
order under Elagabalus’ successor, Alexander Severus (r. –). What-
ever Aelian’s political silence during the reign of Elagabalus, outspoken
criticism of the failed predecessor was, as Pliny’s Panegyric of Trajan demon-
strates, an effective strategy for ingratiating oneself with the new regime.
Furthermore, this episode represents Aelian’s political posturing merely at
its loudest. Given the tact, subtlety, and dissembling required to voice any
political criticism during this period, it is more profitable, I argue, to gauge
this apparently radical modulation of Aelian’s political voice by approach-
ing even an ostensibly non-political text like the NA as a sophisticated
commentary on kingship and the various failures of Rome’s emperors. A
shrewd member of the cultural elite, Aelian knew how to negotiate the
dangerous minefield of Imperial politics.
Philostratus also informs us that Aelian claimed never to have traveled
anywhere outside of Italy, never to have been on board a ship, and to have
no knowledge of the sea (῎Εφασκε δὲ ὁ ἀνὴρ οὗτος μηδ’ ἀποδεδημηκέναι
ποι τῆς γῆς ὑπὲρ τὴν ᾿Ιταλῶν χώραν, μηδὲ ἐμβῆναι ναῦν, μηδὲ γνῶναι
θάλατταν, VS ). This statement appears, however, to contradict Aelian’s
own claim, in the midst of a discourse on animal prodigies, that “I myself
saw even a five-footed bull that was sacred, a dedication to this same god
[Zeus] in the great city of the Alexandrians, in the grove called the god’s,
where densely grown persea trees produced a lovely shade and appearance”
(ἐγὼ δὲ καὶ πεντάποδα βοῦν ἱερὸν ἐθεασάμην, ἀνάθημα τῷ θεῷ τῷδε ἐν
τῇ πόλει τῇ ᾿Αλεξανδρέων τῇ μεγάλῃ, ἐν τῷ καλουμένῳ τοῦ θεοῦ ἄλσει,
ἔνθα περσέαι σύμφυτοι σκιὰν περικαλλῆ καὶ ὄψιν ἀπεδείκνυντο, NA .,
p. , lines –). There have been attempts, beginning with Wellmann,
to argue that this statement reflects not the autopsy of Aelian himself, but
of Apion, Aelian’s source for this passage. Indeed, Aelian the narrator
qualifies Apion’s authority at the beginning of this passage (“if he’s not
telling tall tales,” εἰ μὴ τερατεύεται, line ), in which case we might interpret
the claim to autopsy as having belonged originally to Apion, with Aelian
simply retaining Apion’s first-person plea for the veracity of his account. But
 Cf. Prandi : –.  Johnson : –.
 Wellmann : , : , and RE .; See also Croiset and Croiset : , Scholfield
: xii, Smelik and Hemelrijk : , and Wilson : .
 Evidence from Lives of the Sophists 
I cannot believe that Aelian was so careless; he was, as Schettino reminds
us, a consummate rhetorical artist and in the preface and epilogue of
the NA he prides himself on his skill at transforming his literary sources.
Alternatively, we might consider the possibility that Aelian did in fact see
the five-footed bull with his own eyes in Alexandria – a possibility that
would contradict Philostratus’ assertion that Aelian never traveled outside
Italy. Schettino tries to have it both ways: Aelian did travel to Alexandria
and saw the five-footed bull with his own eyes, and Philostratus’ statement
must either be an ironic reversal (“un capovolgimento ironico”) or, if
sincere, it must refer to a time after Aelian had given up his sophistic career
and ceased traveling. I would like to believe Aelian, and I am even drawn in
by the details that he offers of the sacred grove of Zeus and the cool shade
that it provided – these certainly seem like the narrative embellishments of
one who actually visited the site. But Philostratus’ statement leaves little
room for the kind of qualifications imagined by Schettino, and I think that
Aelian did in fact spend his entire life in Italy. I am therefore inclined to
agree with Kindstrand that Aelian has fabricated this episode in accordance
with literary convention: the claim to autopsy is emphatic, a gesture that
pleads for his invention to be taken seriously. Moreover, Aelian is careful
in this passage to distinguish clearly between his literary sources (λέγει δὲ
᾿Απίων . . . λέγει δὲ ὁ αὐτὸς . . . Νικοκρέων ὁ Κύπριος) and his own autopsy
(ἐγὼ δὲ . . . ἐθεασάμην), a distinction that he sustains in the chapter’s final
statement: “And I related what has come before my eyes and ears” (ἐγὼ δὲ
ὅσα εἰς ἐμὴν ὄψιν τε καὶ ἀκοὴν ἀφίκετο εἶπον, ., p. , lines –).
The claim to autopsy then must not be the result of his carelessly copying
Apion. On the contrary, he emphasizes the authority of his own narrative
ego, but he does so by means of a thoroughly literary gesture, even conjuring
the site of his putative autopsy as an inviting locus amoenus, seducing us
into his fiction by means of a charming topography.
The problem is nevertheless instructive for readers making any kind of
claim about the author of the NA. Amid the complex layering of sources
within Aelian’s own text, and when the narrator so seldom reveals anything
explicit about his identity, it becomes a tricky business to say anything
about “Aelian” with any certainty. Consider also that Aelian’s repeated
boasting never to have left Italy is, according to Philostratus, the reason
why Aelian was admired even more in Rome, for he was committed, it
seemed, to maintaining Roman identity (ὅθεν καὶ λόγου πλείονος κατὰ
τὴν ῾Ρώμην ἠξιοῦτο ὡς τιμῶν τὰ ἤθη, VS ). The question of Aelian’s

 Schettino : .  Kindstrand : .

 The independent intellectual
Roman identity, already addressed here, will be developed more fully in
Chapter , but it suffices to say for the moment that for one whose Roman
character was so apparently conservative, his choice to adopt a foreign
tongue as his favored mode of literary expression remains a rather odd
choice, not to mention his reticence within the NA to declare that he is
actually a Roman and his refusal to cite a single Latin source. This apparent
contradiction is not merely the result of comparing two different texts by
different authors (Philostratus’ assertion against Aelian’s own writings);
it is, rather, indicative of the kind of contradictions that regularly occur
within the pages of the NA itself, where attempts to fix the author’s univocal
presence are routinely foiled. The reader is left to grapple with the many-
voicedness of the NA, a polyphony that, as it turns out, one might have
expected all along in a text that proudly declares its structural variety. So
defiant of the notion of a single authorial identity or attitude, the text
invites interpretations that explore the ever-shifting, labile nature of the
narrative voice.
Philostratus begins the concluding section of Aelian’s life with a bit of
intellectual genealogy: we learn that he was at one point the student
of Pausanias and that he admired Herodes Atticus as “the most varied
of speakers” (ποικιλώτατον ῥητόρων, VS ), an important detail about
Aelian’s aesthetic formation, as poikilia becomes the structuring principle
of both the NA and the VH. The biography closes with the notice that
Aelian lived more than sixty years and that he died without any children,
“because,” he says, “he excused himself from the procreation of children by
never marrying, but this is not the time to philosophize over whether this is
a blessing or a burden” (παιδοποιίαν γὰρ παρῃτήσατο τῷ μὴ γῆμαί ποτε.
τοῦτο δὲ εἴτε εὔδαιμον εἴτε ἄθλιον οὐ τοῦ παρόντος καιροῦ φιλοσοφῆσαι).
I address Aelian’s thoughts on marriage in relation to Roman culture more
fully in Chapter , but for now I wish to understand this statement within
the context of Philostratus’ portrait of Aelian. Framed within a section on
rhetorical training and practice, the remark about Aelian’s decision not to
marry and raise a family is ostensibly non-judgmental. But considering
that Philostratus’ generally eulogistic account of Aelian’s life was earlier
offset by the embarrassing, emasculating anecdote about Aelian’s public
performance of his oration Indictment of the Little Woman, this seemingly
neutral information about Aelian’s lifelong bachelor status becomes a part-
ing jibe about his suspicious failures to live up to contemporary Roman
ideals of masculinity. Philostratus himself, by contrast, could boast of a

 For a similar interpretation of Pliny’s Natural History, see Murphy : –.
 Evidence from the Souda 
wife and family, even though he is silent about them in his writings.
The oscillation of Aelian’s personae within the spectrum between mascu-
line and feminine is a defining feature of my reading of the NA, a text
expressive of the variability of the intellectual’s sexual, social, and political
self-positioning in Severan Rome.

Evidence from the Souda

There remains, finally, a brief, but informative notice about Aelian in
the tenth-century Byzantine Souda lexicon. It is here that we learn that
Aelian’s full name was Claudius Aelianus, that he came from Praeneste
(modern Palestrina) outside Rome, but that his professional life was based
in Rome itself (ἀπὸ Πραινεστοῦ τῆς ᾿Ιταλίας . . . ἐσοφίστευσεν ἐν ῾Ρώμῃ
αὐτῇ, Souda, αἰ- ). Despite Philostratus’ claim that Aelian had no tal-
ent for declamation, Aelian was apparently called, according to the Souda,
“honey-tongued” (μελίγλωσσος) and “honey-voiced” (μελίφθογγος), epi-
thets that reveal something more than the mute eloquence of the written
word.
We learn here also that Aelian was a high priest (ἀρχιερεύς), though
the Byzantine source remains silent about what divinity Aelian served and
where precisely. According to Rüpke’s prosopography and year-by-year lists
of sacerdotal offices, only three individuals with the name Aelianus held
priesthoods in Rome during the span of Aelian’s lifetime (c. –).
These were L. Roscius Aelianus Paculus, priest of the Salii Palatini from
 to , and then flamen from  to ; Q. Aradius Rufinus Opta-
tus Aelianus, who served as a sodalis augustalis from ; and L. Roscius
Aelianus Paculus Salvius Rufus Iulianus, who served as epulo from  and
then simultaneously as fetialis from . Even though the surviving epi-
graphical evidence is incomplete and cannot therefore provide conclusive
evidence, the absence of a Claudius Aelianus from these priestly lists at
least leaves open the possibility that Aelian was a priest not in Rome, but
in his home town of Praeneste. In the early nineteenth century, Koraes and
Jacobs supposed that Aelian served as high priest of the Praenestine goddess
Fortuna, a supposition that was later taken up uncritically by Wellmann
and Scholfield. Kindstrand accepts the possibility that Aelian did have
some priestly role in his lifetime, but he emphasizes the lack of evidence
 Bowie : .  Stamm : .  See Rüpke .
 Koraes :  and Jacobs –: .
 Wellmann : , : , and Scholfield : xi. See also Meyboom :  n. ,  n. ,
and Maspero : .
 The independent intellectual
for identifying Aelian specifically as high priest of Fortuna at Praeneste.
Schettino, on the other hand, has enthusiastically reformulated the tradi-
tional interpretation, seeing the syncretism of Isis with Fortuna in the cult
at Praeneste and Aelian’s interest in Egyptian religion generally as evidence
for identifying Aelian as a priest of Isis.
Schettino’s hypothesis is certainly attractive, but given the five references
to Isis in the NA, I think that if Aelian had been a priest of Isis, then he
would have used at least one of these instances as an opportunity for voicing
devotion to the goddess or at the very least for indicating his affiliation with
the cult. There are, moreover, no references to Isis at all in the VH, and
the one reference in the fragments, describing Marcus Volusius’ attempt
to escape proscription by disguising himself as an attendant of Isis, proves
nothing conclusively about Aelian’s own role as priest. In the absence of
any strong evidence, then, the identification of Aelian as a priest of Isis
must remain purely conjectural.
But perhaps Aelian’s own silence about his priestly duties should be
taken as an indication of how we as readers should approach the matter.
The vaunting of positions and titles is, after all, a trait that Aelian says
belongs to his critics and enemies, whereas the unwillingness to announce
his own priestly office is consistent with the figure who has renounced a
life of celebrity and whose authorial ego merges with the chorus of ancient
voices from the library. What matters for Aelian is not that he fulfilled
the priestly duties of this or that god or goddess in this or that city, but
that divinity itself has exerted a powerful influence on his thought. The
evidence from the Souda that Aelian was a high priest merely lends added
significance to the many religious discussions that pervade the NA. The
role of animals in cult sacrifice and the symbology of animals in the myths
and beliefs of the ancient world were for Aelian more than antiquarian or
cultural curiosities; they were the traditions of an important facet of his
public life.

Conclusion
Despite the fragmented subjectivity of the NA, the collection is nevertheless
bookended by a preface and epilogue that create the illusion of the univocal
presence of the authorial voice. An analysis of the preface and epilogue,
 Kindstrand : –.  Schettino : –.
 NA ., ., ., ., and ..
 Fr.  Hercher, a-c Domingo-Forasté. Cf. V. Max. ..
 VH . may offer a hint about Aelian’s active public life; see Wilson : –.
 Conclusion 
supplemented by analyses of relevant passages from Philostratus’ Lives of the
Sophists and the tenth-century Souda lexicon, gives some sense of Aelian’s
elusive literary persona.
Introducing his choice of subject matter in the preface of the NA,
Aelian figures himself within a well-established philosophical debate on
the capacity of animals for reason (logos) and the long tradition of using
animals to explore and critique human morality. The development of this
philosophically inclined persona continues in the epilogue to the NA,
where Aelian defines himself not as a philosopher strictly speaking, but
as someone ignited with a passion for wisdom. Aelian also sets himself
apart from his peers at Rome, declining the financial benefits and social
advancement that would have come from being a successful public speaker.
In contrast to such posturing, Aelian assimilates himself to the poets, the
historians, and the natural scientists of antiquity. Aelian also questions the
destruction of animals in the hunt, thereby setting himself at odds not
just with the long literary tradition on the moral value of hunting but also
with popular culture at Rome, where crowds were awed by the elaborate
spectacle of the venationes.
Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists explicitly raises the issue of Aelian’s eth-
nic background and cultural identity. Understanding the polyglot linguistic
milieu of Rome in the late second and early third century is significant
for gauging Aelian’s success as a literary artist. But whereas the schol-
arly tradition has sought to posit a specific ethnic background or cultural
identity for the writer from Praeneste (Roman, Greek, Egyptian, or even
something other), his own literary output obfuscates the issue: in the for-
mation of a Hellenic literary persona Aelian avoided culturally specific
self-identifications. Aelian’s Romanness is nevertheless crucial for under-
standing the NA within its cultural context. Only later in the VH does
Aelian begin to self-identify explicitly as a Roman, a gradual coming-out
in the literary realm that stands in stark contrast to Philostratus’ remarks
about how much Aelian was esteemed by contemporaries for maintaining a
conservative Roman character. Philostratus’ anecdote about Aelian’s recita-
tion of his oration against the emperor Elagabalus, as well as his remarks
about the fact that Aelian never married and avoided having children reveal
that Aelian’s countercultural public persona was formed in part by his fail-
ure and/or unwillingness to conform to the normative notions of Roman
masculinity.
Finally, the evidence from the tenth-century Souda lexicon introduces the
subject of Aelian’s public role as high priest (arkhiereus). While the scholarly
tradition has been inclined to hypothesize that Aelian served as a priest of
 The independent intellectual
Isis/Fortuna in his home town of Praeneste, there is ultimately no conclusive
evidence to support this conjecture. The biographical notice about Aelian’s
public role as high priest does, however, enhance our understanding of
the significance of religion and the divine in the development of Aelian’s
literary persona.
 c h a p te r 2

Animals and agroikoi in Aelian’s Rustic Letters

Epistolography in the Second Sophistic

Twenty fictional letters have survived in two manuscripts with the head-
ing “from the rustic letters of Aelian” (ἐκ τῶν Αἰλιανοῦ ἀγροικικῶν
ἐπιστολῶν). Though the attribution to Aelian was once thought to be
spurious, it is now generally agreed that the letters are authentic: apart
from Hercher’s identification of strong linguistic parallels with the NA and
the VH, there is the ancient evidence of Aristainetos (fifth/sixth century
ce?), one of whose own fictional epistles claims to be by Aelian himself
and uses material from Ael. Ep. –. Philostratus’ remark that Aelian
could speak the Athenian dialect as well as anyone from the Attic heart-
land (VS ) surely alludes in part to Aelian’s success in recreating the
voices of Athenian farmers in the Rustic Letters. It is not known for certain
when Aelian wrote the letters, but Hercher suggested that Aelian com-
posed them in his youth, on the basis that they contain a vocabulary and
style not yet fully developed. Reich even assigned a terminus ante quem of
 ce, which means Aelian would have written the letters probably in
his twenties, during the first decade in the reign of Septimius Severus. An
early date is also attractive given the possibility that the letters grew out
of the progumnasmata, or rhetorical school exercises, especially êthopoiia
and prosôpopoiia, wherein Aelian would have been asked by his teacher
to compose in the voice and style of a variety of characters from history
or literature. But we need not accept an early date on these bases. What

 These are cod. Ambrosianus gr. , B  Sup. (th cent.), ff. r–v, and cod. Matritensis gr. 
( Iriarte, th cent.); see De Stefani .
 Namely by Koraes, Jacobs, and Croiset; see Benner and Fobes : – and Kindstrand :
, both with bibliography.
 Hercher : –.  Aristaenet. .; see Drago .  Hercher .
 Reich : . See also Kontoyannis : .
 Kindstrand :  and Rosenmeyer : –. On the exercises, see Kennedy : , ,
, , and .


 Animals and agroikoi in the Rustic Letters
Hercher described as a not yet fully developed style may in fact be a delib-
erate effect of Aelian’s choice to write a more casual prose appropriate to his
characters. Furthermore, the letters’ relationship with the progumnasmata
does not necessarily mean that Aelian wrote the letters in youth; he may
well have written them later in life while reflecting upon his experience as
a student in crafting alternative literary personae. While I am particularly
interested in connections between the intertwining of human and animal
life in the letters and in Aelian’s other works, my reading of the letters
ultimately does not rely on their early date: Aelian’s interest in animality
persists regardless of whether he wrote the letters before, after, or indeed
even during his composition of the NA.
Recreating the milieu of the rustic Greek past was a favorite literary
pursuit of the Second Sophistic, the most famous example being Longus’
pastoral romance, Daphnis and Chloe. Nor was Aelian alone in giving this
theme an epistolary setting: Alciphron’s much larger collection of four
books balanced letters from urban parasites and courtesans with letters
from fisherman and farmers. It has been suggested that the letters of
Alciphron served as the primary inspiration for Aelian, who may have been
Alciphron’s younger contemporary, though there is no consensus on this.
Drawing on the world and the characters of New Comedy, the letters of
Alciphron and Aelian have much in common. Though Aelian chose to
restrict his fictional world to that of Athenian farms, some of his rustics
demonstrate a fascination with courtesans and urban luxuries, thus offering
the reader indirect glimpses of life in the big city. Whereas, for example,
Alciphron dedicates an entire book of letters to courtesans, Aelian offers
a single correspondence from the courtesan Opora (Ep. ). There are no
letters from comic parasites in Aelian’s collection, though in one letter a
farmer named Anthemion boasts of how much work he accomplishes in a
day, provocatively asking his addressee, Drakes, “What work have you done
that is any good, and what labor that is useful?” (Τί σοι καλὸν εἴργασται
καὶ τί σοι πεπόνηται χρηστόν; Ep. ). This may imply that Drakes is,
by contrast, an urban parasite with no such work ethic; compared with
 Hodkinson : –, , and –.
 On Alciphron, see Rosenmeyer : – and Hodkinson : –.
 Reich :  and Benner and Fobes : . The various arguments for priority and imitation
among Aelian, Alciphron, Longus, and Lucian are summarized by Hunter : –. Kindstrand
: – is not persuaded by Reich’s argument claiming the priority of Alciphron. Rosen-
meyer :  accepts that Aelian imitated Alciphron. Hodkinson remains cautiously agnostic:
“The many and various arguments concerning similarities and imitations between all of these
authors [Aelian, Alciphron, Longus, and Lucian] have always been, and will always be when stand-
ing alone, inconclusive, since they rely upon subjective value judgments to determine priority where
imitation is accepted” (: –).
 Epistolography in the Second Sophistic 
Anthemion’s modest pea soup and honest drink, we are to imagine Drakes
as spoiled by the culinary decadence of the city. Finally, though Aelian
offers no letters from fishermen, Ep.  details how Lakhes, the mutual
friend of Demulos and Blepsias, has left his farm behind and taken up the
life of a fisherman. Demulos is critical of Lakhes’ choice, but his criticism
also reveals his own fantasies about adventure on the high seas. Aelian’s
inclusion of a single letter from a courtesan and indirect references to a
parasite and a fisherman, collectively nested within his own miniature book
of letters from farmers, seem to be a studied allusion to Alciphron’s books
of letters by these same character types. This is hardly decisive proof of
Alciphron’s priority, though, since Alciphron could have seen in Aelian’s
letters latent opportunities for epistolary expansion in his own four-book
collection.
Philostratus, Aelian’s contemporary, also wrote letters, the vast majority
of which, composed in his own voice, are erotic in theme. There are 
love letters addressed to women and  addressed to boys. Philostratus’
erotic letters may have aligned with the bisexual attractions of his personal
life, but it is naı̈ve to make assumptions about an author’s sexual life solely
on the basis of his literary compositions. Alternatively, Philostratus’ letters
to boys may be purely artificial, a gesture of affiliation with Greek culture
through the medium of the pederastic tradition. Philostratus’ love letters
also engage in a contemporary erotic discourse about the respective plea-
sures of sex with women and boys. The theme had already been elaborated
in numerous genres during the Second Sophistic, including romance (espe-
cially Xenophon of Ephesus, Achilles Tatius, and Longus), philosophical
dialogue (Plutarch’s Amores), satire (Lucian’s Erotes), and epigram (Strato’s
so-called Musa puerilis). Philostratus contributes to the ongoing debate by
giving the theme an epistolary setting.
I will say more below about erôs in Aelian’s letters, though for the
moment it is noteworthy that none of his Athenian farmers displays an
erotic interest in boys. Aelian elsewhere freely and sympathetically writes
about paiderastia (see Chapter ), and so its absence from the Letters is
curious. It is entirely plausible, though, that he thought an erôs for boys
to be inappropriate epistolary material for rustics – even Athenian rustics.

 Rosenmeyer : –.

 On Philostratus’ letters, see Benner and Fobes : –, Rosenmeyer : –, Hodkinson
: –, and Goldhill b: –.
 The remaining  are not love letters, but epistles addressed to other named individuals, including
Epictetus (Ep. , , and ), Chariton (), the emperor Caracalla (), and his mother Julia
Domna ().
 Animals and agroikoi in the Rustic Letters
Aelian’s letters are, after all, firmly rooted in the traditions of Attic New
Comedy and the plays of Menander, in which paiderastia was conspicuously
absent. Furthermore, in the contemporary literature that idealized rustic
life, paiderastia is represented as a decadent urban pleasure. This mentality
is typified in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe with the character of the parasite
Gnathon, depicted as an intruder from the city and corrupting the pastoral
world of the novel with his appetitive erôs for Daphnis. In the same
way that Aelian does not offer the reader any letters from urban parasites,
neither does he offer love letters to country boys from their sophisticated
urban erastai.
There may have been other letters. As noted at the beginning of this
chapter, the manuscripts announce that the existing texts are “from the rus-
tic letters of Aelian” (ἐκ τῶν Αἰλιανοῦ ἀγροικικῶν ἐπιστολῶν), implying
a larger collection now lost. Even if there were other letters, I am inclined
to agree with Bowie’s interpretation of the collection as an artistic whole:
the editorial selections and juxtapositions create a compositional unity that
determines reading and interpretation. The collection is not a random
sampling of letters; on the contrary, structure is apparent. The highlight is
the correspondence between the good neighbor Kallipides and the misan-
thrope Knemon (Ep. –), a grouping of four letters that is balanced by
an exchange of letters between Derkullos and the courtesan Opora (–)
and between Lamprias and Truphe (–). Additionally, letters that do
not appear to be a part of a sequential correspondence are tied to the
collection as a whole by references to writers, addressees, or characters
that appear in the other letters. Thus Ep.  recounts Euthukomides’ erotic
encounter with a woman named Mania, who receives mention again in
Ep.  by a different writer named Komarkhides. Aelian also constructs tri-
angular relationships between writers and addressees: Character A writes to
Character B and then switches roles to become the recipient of a letter from
Character C. Thus Ep.  is written to Drakes by Anthemion, who becomes
the recipient of Ep. , written by a third character named Baiton; similarly,
in Ep.  Khremes writes to Parmenon and then becomes the recipient of
Ep. , written by someone named Mormias. From this brief description
of the sophisticated network of connections between the letters, one can
see how the reader generates meaning not just from the content of the
individual letters, but also by their arrangement, which was itself the result
of numerous macro-compositional choices.

 See Plu. Moralia c and Lape : .  Hunter : –.
 See Bowie in Easterling and Knox : ; see also Rosenmeyer : .
 Rustic subjectivity 
By writing short fictional epistles from farmers, combining theme and
scale to charming effect, Aelian honed his literary craft to meet the standards
of contemporary taste. Reardon’s characterization of Alciphron’s technical
virtuosity as “du pointillisme littéraire” could just as well apply to Aelian,
and Anderson’s description of the prevailing fashion for the “art of the
miniature” in the literature of the Second Sophistic is apt here. More
recently, Rosenmeyer has explained how epistolography was the perfect
medium for the literary miniature while at the same time offering an
opportunity for demonstrating editorial arrangement as itself an act of
composition: “Letters are by nature fragmentary glimpses into the lives of
their writers, and are easily combined into collected correspondences.”
Aelian’s interest in crafting a collection of epistolary fragments is therefore
consistent with the creation and manipulation of literary fragments in all
of his miscellanies. Aelian’s compilatory aesthetic and his fascination with
literary poikilia are the subject of the following chapter.

Rustic subjectivity
One of the earliest literary representations of rustic Athenians comes from
Aristophanes’ Clouds, in which Strepsiades laments to his son that he ever
had to marry a woman from the city:
εἴθ’ ὤφελ’ ἡ προμνήστρι’ ἀπολέσθαι κακῶς
ἥτις με γῆμ’ ἐπῆρε τὴν σὴν μητέρα.
ἐμοὶ γὰρ ἦν ἄγροικος ἥδιστος βίος,
εὐρωτιῶν, ἀκόρητος, εἰκῇ κείμενος,
βρύων μελίτταις καὶ προβάτοις καὶ στεμφύλοις.
ἔπειτ’ ἔγημα Μεγακλέους τοῦ Μεγακλέους
ἀδελφιδῆν ἄγροικος ὢν ἐξ ἄστεως,
σεμνήν, τρυφῶσαν, ἐγκεκοισυρωμένην.
ταύτην ὅτ’ ἐγάμουν, συγκατεκλινόμην ἐγὼ
ὄζων τρυγός, τρασιᾶς, ἐρίων, περιουσίας,
ἡ δ’ αὖ μύρου, κρόκου, καταγλωττισμάτων,
δαπάνης, λαφυγμοῦ, Κωλιάδος, Γενετυλλίδος.
(Ar. Nu. –)
I wish she’d drop dead, that matchmaker who forced me to marry your
mother. I had the sweetest rustic life – it was free of washing up, free of
limits, free of order, teeming with bees and flocks and olive cakes. Then I
married the daughter of Megakles, son of Megakles, even though I was a

 Reardon :  and Anderson : –.

 Rosenmeyer : ; see also Hodkinson : –.
 Animals and agroikoi in the Rustic Letters
rustic and she came from the city. She was haughty, extravagant, as luxurious
as a lady from Persia. On our wedding night, I got into bed reeking of too
much raw wine, dried figs, and wool, but she smelled of myrrh, saffron,
French kisses, money, gluttony, like Aphrodite on the coast, like a wanton
birthday party.
Even in this early image of the Athenian farmer, Aristophanes typifies rustic
life by its proximity to organic matter, agrarian and pastoral foodstuffs,
and animals themselves, especially bees and sheep. The rustic is depicted
as a malodorous extension of the land, its creatures, and their byproducts.
Strepsiades’ urban wife, by contrast, applies a variety of scents and perfumes
to make herself olfactorily pleasing. While Aristophanes’ sophisticated
urban audience may have appreciated a woman who made sure that she
smelled pretty when she got into bed, the rustic Strepsiades equates the
perfumed body of his wife with decadence and illicit sexuality.
Aelian’s letters extend the comic tradition of representing the rustic’s
life as intermingled with the life of animals, but the letters also compli-
cate Aristophanes’ vision of a straightforward division between the rustic
and urban perspectives. Aelian is of course interested in the humorous
tensions that arise when rustic and urban lives collide, especially in the
realm of the erotic: Derkullos’ rustic naı̈veté is contrasted with the urban
sophistication of the courtesan Opora (Ep. –), the bumpkin Khremes
has very little sense of how to deal either with courtesans or with soldiers
(Ep. ), and Mormias complains that his son’s marriage to a flute girl is
distracting his son from his rustic chores (Ep. ). But whereas Aristo-
phanes’ comic image of Strepsiades relies upon an essential opposition
between Strepsiades’ rusticity and the audience’s urbanity, Aelian’s epis-
tolary êthopoiia delves more deeply into the rustic perspective to explore
how rustic subjectivity is formed not only by opposition to urbanity, but
also by differentiating civilized and savage variations on rusticity. Aelian’s
farmers stylize their rusticity by marking the contours of their relationship
with animal life. All rustics live in close proximity with animals, and so
the boundary between human and animal is more fluid than in the urban
sphere. This fluidity, then, offers a spectrum of possibilities for rustic sub-
jectivity. One extreme is the putatively civilized farmer who asserts his moral
authority and membership within conventional rustic society by marking
his distance from and superiority over animal life. Another extreme is the
putatively savage rustic who is represented by others and who represents
himself as an animal. I explore these variations in greater detail in the next
two sections of this chapter.
My emphasis on the blurring of the line between animal and human in
the letters may at first seem to contradict the emphasis on human morality
 Rustic subjectivity 
and literary sophistication announced in Ep. , the final letter of the
collection. Phaidrias writes to Sthenon that the countryside gives rise to
everything that is beautiful, some of which lasts through the whole year
and some of which lasts only for a season; the gods are their creators, but
the earth is both mother and nurturer. The sentiment reflects Stoic and
Cynic beliefs about living in harmony with nature and rejecting the worldly
attachments of urban life (see Chapter ). Among that which grows in the
countryside are also justice (δικαιοσύνη) and moderation or self-control
(σωφροσύνη), moral ideals that Phaidrias calls “the most beautiful of trees
and the most profitable of fruits.” Everything that one needs, not just for
physical sustenance but also for the cultivation of human morality, grows
in the country.
In the second half of the letter, Phaidrias tells Sthenon not to disdain
farmers (does Sthenon live in the city?), for “even here” (καὶ ἐνταῦθα)
there is some σοφία. It is unclear at first whether by σοφία Phaidrias means
natural “wisdom” or artificial “cleverness/sophistication.” The following
sentence, though, makes it clear that he means “wisdom,” since the σοφία
of farmers “has not been given a varied stylization by the tongue, nor has it
been given a beautiful appearance by the power of words; rather, it is utterly
silent and confesses its virtue through the very way we live” (γλώττῃ μὲν
οὐ πεποικιλμένη οὐδὲ καλλωπιζομένη λόγων δυνάμει, σιγῶσα δὲ εὖ μάλα
καὶ δι’ αὐτοῦ τοῦ βίου τὴν ἀρετὴν ὁμολογοῦσα). The σοφία of Aelian’s
farmers may indeed be silent, insofar as their letters lack a tongue and do
not speak audibly, but the letters themselves, qua stylized literary fragments,
are clear evidence that their writers are not mere rustics, much less irrational
beasts. And if their letters are “rather sophisticated” (σοφώτερα) for the
country, Phaidrias says that Sthenon should not be surprised, “since we are
not Libyan or Lydian, but Athenian farmers” (οὐ γάρ ἐσμεν οὔτε Λίβυες
οὔτε Λυδοὶ ἀλλ’ ᾿Αθηναῖοι γεωργοί). The Attic countryside, by virtue of
its being the mother of the Attic tongue, the very medium of paideia, must
also by implication be the mother of human morality and human wisdom,
which come naturally to Athenian farmers. Libyan and Lydian farmers may
be mere rustics, but Athenian farmers are more sophisticated, and therefore
more human.
In this programmatic final letter, therefore, Aelian establishes through
one rustic voice the communal pride of the Athenian farmers in their own
feelings of moral and intellectual superiority. But this is a conceit typical of
literature from the Second Sophistic, and Aelian knows it, for throughout
the letters Aelian reveals a reality that is quite different, as his Athenian

 Hodkinson : –.

 Animals and agroikoi in the Rustic Letters
farmers live lives that are both literally and figuratively close to those of
animals. On the one hand, it is not surprising that animals populate the
world of the Attic farmers. One expects to find animals on farms, and so we
read of real animals in the letters: sheep, calves, dogs, bees, goats, and hares.
But animals also loom prominently in the imaginations of Aelian’s farmers,
either metaphorically, within similes, by metonymy, or via proverb, and
so Aelian’s farmers talk or think in terms of lions, wolves, ticks, a gull,
wild pigeons, doves, and crows. Animals are both part of the mundane
reality of the Attic countryside and essential to the figurative discourse of
its inhabitants. Aelian’s farmers live with animals on a daily basis and they
also conjure symbolic animals in their daily speech, or at least in their
epistolary writing.

Animals and agroikoi

The lives of Aelian’s farmers are so closely intertwined with those of animals
that it is sometimes difficult to discern a firm division between human and
non-human creatures. The second letter of the collection, for example,
which is also the first letter in which animals appear, immediately causes
interpretative difficulties. Komarkhides writes to Dropides:
῾Ημέρων ὁ μαλακὸς φελλεῖ ἐπέκοψε τὸ σκέλος πάνυ χρηστῶς, καὶ θέρμη
ἐπέλαβεν αὐτοῦ, καὶ βουβὼν ἐπήρθη. βουλοίμην δ’ ἂν αὐτὸν ἀναρρωσθῆ
ναι ἤ μοι μεδίμνους ἰσχάδων ὑπάρξαι τέτταρας. τὴν οἶν τὴν τὰ μαλακὰ
ἔρια, ἣν ἐπαινῶ πρὸς σέ, παρ’ ἐμοῦ πρόσειπε καὶ τὼ βοϊδίω καὶ τὴν κύνα,
καὶ τὴν Μανίαν καὶ αὐτὴν χαίρειν κέλευε. (Ep. )
Hemeron, the delicate one, did a really good job breaking his leg on a stony
patch of ground, and fever overcame him, and his groin swelled. But I’d give
up four medimnoi of dried figs if he’d recover. The ewe with the soft wool,
the one about which I compliment you – give my best to her and the two
calves and the bitch, and Mania herself, too – give her my best.
Aelian borrows the scenario and the language of the accident from Menan-
der’s Georgos (–), in which the old man Kleainetos is reported to have
broken his leg and become ill. I have translated the first word of the letter,
῾Ημέρων, as the personal name “Hemeron,” following the lead of Benner
and Fobes in the Loeb edition. But “Hemeron” is an odd name: it has no
precedent in Greek literature and there are no attestations of “Hemeron” in

 For proverbs in the letters, see Tsirimbas .

 The reading ὁμέρων in the codex Matritensis is rejected by all the editors.
 Animals and agroikoi 
the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names. A reader unfamiliar with the name
might possibly even take it as a genitive of the adjective ἥμερος, mean-
ing “tame,” “civilized,” or “gentle” and commonly applied to animals.
When the genitive plural form of this adjective appears in Greek, it very
frequently does so in the phrase ἡμέρων ζῴων, “of tame animals.” It
would therefore not be unreasonable for a reader to take the first word of
Ep.  as a partitive genitive with ὁ μαλακός; the whole phrase would then
mean “the delicate/soft one of my tame animals.” Given these alternatives,
the reader wonders: who or what broke his or its leg? Was it a delicate man
named Hemeron or was it a delicate animal that Komarkhides had tamed?
The Menandrian precedent suggests the former; but the interpretation of
ὁ μαλακός as one of Komarkhides’ pets is corroborated by his later use
of the same word when referring to a favorite “ewe with soft (μαλακά)
wool.”
Both possibilities are valid, and I do not insist on either as being better
than the other. On the contrary, this ambiguity runs through the letter
as a whole, which illustrates that human and animal lives are so mutually
involved with one another, that it is difficult to say which has priority.
The letter purports to be a communication from one man to another, but
the content of the letter reveals four additional communications between
Komarkhides and (a) the aforementioned ewe with soft wool, (b) two
calves, and (c) a bitch, which humorously prompts Komarkhides to send
greetings finally and almost as an afterthought to (d) Mania, probably
the wife of Dropides. Rosenmeyer has suggested that the salutary closing
of the letter serves as “either a parody of the traditional formula, or a
pointed suggestion that animals on the farm are more valuable than a
working woman.” But Aelian also arranges here a sophisticated double
juxtaposition, one epistolary, the other lexical: this letter follows the one
that divulges Mania’s sexual relationship with Euthukomides, and so the
juxtaposition of “bitch” and “Mania” in Ep.  cannot be accidental. One
thinks especially of Helen’s famous self-accusations as a “bitch” in both
the Iliad and the Odyssey as well as Semonides’ third type of woman in his

 In the Aegean, the variants ῾Ημέρα and ῾Ημέρη are attested on Thasos and Chios, respectively, and
eleven ῞Ημεροι are attested on Rhodes from the third century bce to the first century ce. In the
Peloponnese, one ῾Ημερώ is attested from Hermione. Three additional women named ῾Ημέρα are
attested in Pantikapaion in the Cimmerian Bosporos, in Chersonesos in Tauris, and in Smyrna. No
variants of the name are attested at all in Attica.
 Cf. LSJ s.v.
 Of the  instances of the word ἡμέρων found in the TLG,  times it is either paired with or
implied with the noun ζῴων.
 Rosenmeyer : .
 Animals and agroikoi in the Rustic Letters
famous diatribe. Mania may be a woman, but she is also metaphorically
an animal.
The reverse is true in Ep. , as animals become metaphorically human
when Baiton laments his empty hive and the departure of his bees. Writing
to someone named Anthemion, Baiton at first characterizes his symbiotic
relationship with the bees as one of xenia: “we,” he says, “used to feast
(εἱστιῶμεν) them with the most perfect banquets, and they, as a result of
their non-stop industriousness, used to feast us in return (ἀνθειστίων) with
an abundance of beautiful honey.” In the second half of the letter, though,
he thinks of the bees in more intimate terms:
ἐγὼ δὲ αὐτῶν ὅταν ὑπομνησθῶ τῆς πτήσεως καὶ τῆς εὐχαρίτου χορείας,
οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἢ νομίζω θυγατέρας ἀφῃρῆσθαι. ὀργίζομαι μὲν οὖν αὐταῖς·
τί γὰρ ἀπέλιπον τροφέα αὐτῶν καὶ ἀτεχνῶς πατέρα καὶ φρουρὸν καὶ
μελεδωνὸν οὐκ ἀχάριτον; δεῖ δέ με ἀνιχνεῦσαι τὴν πλάνην αὐτῶν καὶ ὅποι
ποτὲ ἀποδρᾶσαι κάθηνται, καὶ τίς αὐτὰς ὑπεδέξατο καὶ τοῦτο· ἔχει γάρ
τοι τὰς μηδὲν προσηκούσας. εἶτα εὑρὼν ὀνειδιῶ πολλὰ τὰς ἀγνώμονας
καὶ ἀπίστους. (Ep. )
And when I recollect their delightful, winged choreography, I think of
nothing else but that I have been robbed of my daughters. Then I’m angry
at them, for why did they abandon the one who nourished them, simply
put, their father, protector, and not ungrateful guardian? But I must track
down their wandering and where they have run off and settled and who
took them in – this too, for he possesses, you understand, those who do not
belong to him. Then, when I have found them, I will upbraid them severely
as being unfeeling and unfaithful.
The letter is a charming monologue of loss. But expressing this apian
relationship with such familial intimacy is motivated. At one point Baiton
swears by Aristaios and Apollo himself that he did not harm the bees.
The reference to Aristaios assimilates his own predicament with that of
the mythological patron of beekeepers: Aristaios’ own hive was empty,
according to Vergil, “because his bees, as the story goes, had died from
disease and hunger” (amissis, ut fama, apibus morboque fameque, G. .).
Baiton’s mythological allusion heightens the emotional intensity of his
loss, for it is clear that his own bees have not died from disease or hunger.
He feels that he has been “robbed of his daughters,” but the passive verb
ἀφῃρῆσθαι begs the question: who is the thief? Baiton’s grief turns to anger,
as he says he will track down the culprit, “this too, for he possesses, you
understand, those who do not belong to him.” The remark is pointed, and

 Il. ., . and Od. .; Semon. .–. On Helen, see Blondell .
 Animals and agroikoi 
the emphatic particle τοι, properly an ethical dative of the personal pronoun
σύ, directs the reader’s attention back to the letter’s addressee, Anthemion,
the flowery imagery of whose name suggests that he himself is responsible
for luring Baiton’s bees away from their hive. At the beginning of the
letter Baiton even states that their familiar meadow was “full of flowers”
(ἀνθῶν εὔφορον), implying that it would take a man similarly abounding
in flowers to seduce his bees. Baiton wants his bees back, and Anthemion
should be encouraged to return them, as Baiton claims he is more upset
at the bees, whom he calls “unfeeling and unfaithful.” Anthemion may
harbor the runaway bees, but the greater transgression belongs to the bees
themselves, who have broken the bonds of affection and trust with their
“father.”
Two additional letters depict the intertwining of human and animal lives
in the realm of the erotic. In Ep. , Khremes writes to Parmenon to say that
he now understands why he had advised him to stay away from courtesans.
What follows is a condemnation of the gluttony and two-facedness of
hetairai that Aelian has adapted from a speech of the slave Parmenon in
Menander’s Eunuch. Khremes then begins to describe his encounter with
a courtesan named Thebaı̈s. When she came dancing provocatively in his
direction, Khremes lifted her up by her waist (μέσην, a gesture of sexual
aggression and violence), threw her down on the couch, and was about
to lay claim to the object of his lust; just then a soldier interrupted and
took Thebaı̈s for himself. The letter ends with Khremes’ enraged cursing:
“And I wish he’d just die, that soldier who got in my way – Thrasuleon,
I think, was his name, or some other such thing tangled up with a wild
beast” (ἀπόλοιτο δὲ ὁ στρατιώτης ὁ διακωλύσας με· Θρασυλέων, οἶμαι, ἦν
ὄνομα αὐτῷ ἢ ἄλλο τι τοιοῦτον συμπεπλεγμένον θηρίῳ). Presumably, as
a courtesan, Thebaı̈s would have been paid by Khremes for her services, in
which case Thrasuleon robbed Khremes of enjoying what his hard earned
money had paid for. The name “Thrasuleon” means “bold lion,” hence
Khremes’ remark that the soldier’s name is “tangled up with a wild beast.”
Khremes’ point is that the soldier’s beastly name reflects his beastly nature:
how uncivilized for the soldier to take what didn’t belong to him. The
irony, though, is that Khremes seems to be completely unaware of his own
animal nature, as he was intending to make quick work of satisfying his
sexual appetite so that he could return to his goats (σπεύδω καταλαβεῖν ἓν
δύο τὰ σκέλη ἄρας καὶ ὑποστρέφειν ἐπὶ τὰς αἶγας πάλιν). Even Khremes’
own name possesses an animal quality, evoking the verb χρεμετίζειν, which

 Cf. Ter. Eu. –.  Henderson : .

 Animals and agroikoi in the Rustic Letters
means “to neigh” or “to whinny” like a horse. Very little, it turns out,
distinguishes Khremes from Thrasuleon, except that the latter is bolder
and therefore more effective at getting what he wants.
The rape of women by young men is a commonplace in the world of New
Comedy, which explains the casual attitude towards rape demonstrated by
the characters in Aelian’s letters. It is noteworthy, though, that in the very
next letter Aelian shows us an alternative point of view that is critical of
the licentious behavior of young men. Phileriphos writes to Simulos:
Πέπυσμαί σου τὸν υἱὸν εἶναι λάγνην. τί οὖν αὐτὸν οὐ βίᾳ συλλαβὼν
τομίαν εἰργάσω, ὥσπερ εἰώθαμεν τοὺς τράγους ἡμεῖς; τοῦτο γάρ τοι καὶ
τὰ ζῷα ἀναπείθει ἡσυχίαν τε ἔχειν καὶ σωφρονεῖν εὖ μάλα. εἰμὶ δὲ ἐγὼ
περὶ ταῦτα δήπου δεινός· ἀποφανῶ γὰρ παραχρῆμα ὁλόκληρον, σάξας
ἁλῶν καὶ ἐπαλείψας πίτταν· εἶτα ὑγιεινότερος ἔσται κρότωνος δήπου καὶ
κολοκύντης, καὶ ἐρῶν παύσεται καὶ ἐπιτρίβων σοι τὴν οὐσίαν. ἐνόρχην δὲ
ἀκόλαστον ὑγιαίνων τρέφοι τίς ἄν; (Ep. )
I’ve heard that your son is lecherous. Why don’t you take him by force and
make him a eunuch, then, just like we do to our goats? For this, you know,
persuades even animals both to be peaceful and to demonstrate the best
self-control. And I myself am pretty clever when it comes to these things,
for I’ll make him well again right away, applying a compress of salt and
smearing on pitch. Then he’ll be healthier than a tick, I suppose, and a
gourd, and he’ll stop being overcome by lust and wearing out your property.
And who in his right mind would continue to raise a creature lacking in
self-control with its testicles intact?
The opening of the letter is not without textual difficulty. In the first
sentence I have printed υἱόν (“son”), following the three modern editions
by Benner and Fobes, Leone, and Domingo-Forasté. The tenth-century
codex Ambrosianus reads ͞υ͞ν and the fifteenth-century codex Matritensis
reads ὑν; Musurus’ edition of  printed ῦν and Hercher printed ὗν
(“boar”). In previous readings, then, this letter was nothing more than
one farmer’s proposal to neuter a neighbor’s troublesome boar. In ,
however, Radermacher proposed that the text must be corrected to υἱόν
(“son”) on the grounds that the following statement – that castration
persuades “even animals” (καὶ τὰ ζῷα) to behave – only makes sense if
Phileriphos’ intended victim is not an animal. Suddenly, Ep.  becomes
a comic (if not horrifying) vignette about a rustic remedy for a teenager’s
 For this portion of the text, I have followed the apparatus criticus of the Loeb edition by Benner and
Fobes. Leone notes in his apparatus that the reading of the codex Ambrosianus is υἱὸν (cf. ͞υ͞ν Benner
and Fobes). The Teubner edition of Domingo-Forasté is inconsistent and sometimes unreliable.
See Nesselrath . I have not consulted the manuscripts myself.
 Radermacher : .
 Kallipides and Knemon 
lust. Furthermore, the juxtaposition of this letter with Ep. , both about
the licentious behavior of young men, contributes to the thematic pairing
of letters throughout the collection.
Phileriphos’ censure of the boy’s behavior does not, however, imply that
he believes that rape is wrong because of the sexual violence inflicted upon
its victims. Phileriphos is not apparently concerned with the objects of
the boy’s sexual assault; rather, the victim receiving Phileriphos’ sympathy
is the boy’s father, Simulos, whose property (οὐσίαν) the boy’s licentious
behavior is destroying. It is not even clear who or what inflamed the
boy’s lust; was it Simulos’ slaves or farm animals, all of which would have
counted as Simulos’ property? The important thing for Phileriphos is the
boy’s inability to control his sexual urges, an incontinence that makes him
savage and assimilates him to the non-human animals of the farm, implying
that one factor distinguishing humans from other animals is our supposed
self-control over sexual behavior.

Kallipides and Knemon: civilized and savage rusticity

Phileriphos’ criticism of sexual akolasia (“lack of self-control”) in Ep. 
connects this letter with Ep. , in which Phaidrias boasts that the human
virtue of sôphrosunê (“moderation/self-control”) grows as natural produce
amid the trees and fruit of the Attic countryside. Simulos’ animal-son might
seem to be an aberration from the natural sôphrosunê of the Athenian farm-
ers, but the correspondence between Kallipides and Knemon (Ep. –)
offers a different variation on country living, depicting a community of rus-
tics who actually embrace their baser animal instincts. The correspondence,
inspired by comic and satiric sources, begins with Kallipides’ attempt to
change Knemon’s misanthropic disposition: in the lives of farmers, one
should expect mildness of character (τὸ ἥμερον τοῦ τρόπου, Ep. ), but
Knemon somehow is a “savage” (ἄγριος). Whenever he catches anyone on
his property, he runs him off “like one chasing a wolf” (ὡς διώκων λύκον).
Kallipides’ remark offers an interesting reversal: though describing what
he characterizes as Knemon’s savage behavior, he imagines the situation
briefly from Knemon’s own perspective, in which it is not Knemon who
 Additional thematic pairs/groupings may be identified as follows: Ep.  and  (references to Mania);
 and  (misbehaving neighbors);  and  (the correspondence between Derkullos and Opora); 
and  (the correspondence between Lamprias and Truphe); – (the correspondence between
Kallipides and Knemon); and  and  (on finding/pursuing fortunes). Other combinations are of
course possible.
 Antiphanes’ Timon, Menander’s Duskolos, Lucian’s Timon, and also Alciphron . and .–. See
Rosenmeyer : .
 Animals and agroikoi in the Rustic Letters
is the savage beast, but the trespasser. Knemon’s response in Ep.  is full
of comic vitriol: despite his misanthropic disposition, he does not mind
responding via letter, since he does not need to see Kallipides face-to-face;
he envies the hero Perseus for his ability to fly above human society and
also for being able to transform people into stone statues, ideal neighbors.
The letter concludes with Knemon’s despondent question, “What after all
has got it into my head that I am a human?” (τί γὰρ καὶ μαθὼν εἰμὶ ἄνθρ-
ωπος;), an acknowledgment that there is something essentially inhuman
in his unsociable character.
In Ep. , Kallipides makes a further attempt at befriending his misan-
thropic neighbor by inviting him to a θυσία, a communal sacrifice and
festival, in honor of the rustic god Pan, which will surely inspire cama-
raderie: “when you have drunk with us and shared in the libations, you will
be somewhat even more mild.” Kallipides then imagines Knemon under
the joint influence of Pan and Dionysus:
εἰ δέ που καὶ μεθύων κόρῃ περιπέσοις ἅβραν ἀνακαλούσῃ ἢ τὴν τίτθην
ὑπολειφθεῖσαν εὑρεῖν πειρωμένῃ, τάχα πού τι καὶ θερμὸν δράσεις καὶ
νεανικὸν ἔργον. οὐδὲν ἂν ἀπεοικὸς εἴη καὶ τοιοῦτό τι πραχθῆναι ἐν τῇ τοῦ
Πανὸς θυσίᾳ· καὶ γάρ τοι κἀκεῖνος ἐρωτικὸς εὖ μάλα καὶ οἷος ἐπανίστασθαι
παρθένοις. (Ep. )
And maybe if, even when you’re drunk, you should happen upon a maiden
as she is calling upon her favorite slave or trying to find her nurse who has
been left behind, then perhaps maybe you’ll do something hot, the kind of
thing young men do. It wouldn’t be inappropriate even for such a sort of
thing to be done in a festival of Pan, for that one, too, you understand, is
very erotic and is the sort to rise up against virgins.
Rosenmeyer emphasizes the apparent triviality of the “impolite manners”
that give rise to the four letters between Kallipides and Knemon: “One
letter on such a subject is certainly readable, but three or four letters, which
lead to aporia as neither side wins the argument, are more difficult to
appreciate.” But the letters are not just about impolite manners, and the
source of the conflict is hardly trivial. Knemon has deliberately set himself
apart from his community, an act incomprehensible to Kallipides, who
tries to reintegrate his putatively savage neighbor within the social fabric.
The θυσία in honor of the god Pan is the quintessential expression of
rustic communal life, and so therefore the ideal context in which to tame
Knemon’s unsocial character, to make him feel like one of the community.

 Ibid.
 Kallipides and Knemon 
But in his invitation to the θυσία, Kallipides ends up revealing the animal-
like behavior of his purportedly civilized fellow rustics, perhaps as the very
means of socializing Knemon and persuading him to join in the festivities.
At the θυσία, Knemon will perhaps find an opportunity for rape, an
opportunity, in other words, for giving expression to his animal nature.
The reader will recall that the god who presides over the θυσία, the one
who is “very erotic” and “the sort to rise up against virgins,” is himself half-
human and half-goat and is representative of the animal nature in humans.
The sexual assault of a virgin is “the kind of thing young men do,” implying
that Kallipides is familiar with the licentious behavior of rustic youths like
Simulos’ son (Ep. ) and perhaps also with the sexual aggression of a
character like Khremes (Ep. ), both of whom were also animalized by
their inability to control sexual desire. Rustics are supposed to have a
tame or civilized character (τὸ ἥμερον τοῦ τρόπου, Ep. ). The Panic
θυσία, however, offers a place and time where the community of rustics is
complicit with and forgiving of such animal behavior, as Kallipides explains
that “It wouldn’t be inappropriate even for such a sort of thing to be done
in a festival of Pan.” The community of rustics, in other words, welcomes
sexual akolasia, and so the putatively savage Knemon, too, should feel
welcome.
In Ep. , the final letter of the correspondence as we have it, Knemon
remains unpersuaded. He was not charmed by Kallipides’ description of
the festival and the social world of the rustics, whom he flees as enemies.
Nor can he understand the allure of Dionysus: “And I am suspicious of
wine, too, as it is terribly powerful at plotting against and attacking one’s
judgment” (ὑφορῶμαι δὲ καὶ τὸν οἶνον ὡς ἐπιβουλεῦσαι καὶ ἐπιθέσθαι
γνώμῃ δεινῶς καρτερόν). Knemon reveres the gods, Pan included, but
he observes an appropriate religious distance; sacrifice itself he avoids,
probably because of the orgiastic revels that it inspires. He is outraged
that Kallipides would try to entice him with the promise of flute girls
and songs, “and fine, too, that you propose the following: to dance and
have hot intercourse with a maiden! I think you would even leap into
fire and somersault into knives” (καλὰ δέ σου κἀκεῖνα, ὀρχήσασθαι καὶ
ὁμιλῆσαι κόρῃ θερμότατα. σὺ μέν μοι δοκεῖς κἂν ἐς πῦρ ἅλασθαι κἂν
ἐς μαχαίρας κυβιστῆσαι). The line is a quotation from an episode in
Xenophon’s Memorabilia, when Socrates criticizes Kritoboulos for having
stolen a kiss from the son of Alcibiades. In this, Socrates says, Kritoboulos
proved himself most reckless: “this man would even somersault into knives
and leap into fire” (οὗτος κἂν εἰς μαχαίρας κυβιστήσειε κἂν εἰς πῦρ ἅλοιτο),
since a boy’s kiss, as poisonous as the bite from a venomous spider, reduces
 Animals and agroikoi in the Rustic Letters
the lover to slavery. By writing about his abstention from wine and
erotic pleasure in this way, Knemon stylizes himself as a rustic philosopher
striving to cultivate judgment and self-control. From this perspective it
is not Knemon who appears to be an uncivilized savage, but Kallipides,
who by contrast promotes a communal loosening of inhibitions and sexual
indulgence lacking in judgment. Despite the Socratic gloss of his epistolary
self-presentation, Knemon nevertheless also satisfies his reader’s expectation
of him as an agrios: for what Kallipides has suggested, Knemon declares
“I would even eat you raw” (κἂν ὠμοῦ πασαίμην σου), thus assimilating
himself to savage creatures that do not even bother to cook their food like
civilized humans. Unlike in Menander’s Duskolos, Aelian’s Knemon is
not reintegrated within the community, and this departure from the comic
model is noteworthy. In this pastiche of the New Comic and philosophical
traditions, Knemon depicts himself as both an ethical exemplar and a wild
animal that remains outside social conventions.
The philosophical turn in Knemon’s self-presentation brings to mind
Aelian’s similar self-fashioning in the epilogue of the NA, which I discussed
in the previous chapter. Aelian of course does not boast that he could eat
his sophistic enemies raw, but he does share with Knemon a rejection of
the conventional life that is expected of him. Knemon’s unwillingness to
participate in the Panic θυσία parallels Aelian’s own unwillingness to partic-
ipate in the careerist posturing of his fellow sophists, and just as Knemon’s
philosophically minded retreat makes him agrios, incomprehensibly savage,
Aelian’s own turn to the solitary acts of reading and writing is also a turn
toward animal life. Aelian knows that his fellow sophists will scoff at him
for his choice of subject, but he defends himself in the epilogue of the NA:
ἐγὼ δὲ ὑπέρ τε ἀλωπέκων καὶ σαυρῶν καὶ κανθάρων καὶ ὄφεων καὶ
λεόντων καὶ τί δρᾷ πάρδαλις καὶ ὅπως πελαργὸς φιλόστοργον καὶ
ὅτι ἀηδὼν εὔστομον καὶ πῶς φιλόσοφον ἐλέφας καὶ εἴδη ἰχθύων καὶ
γεράνων ἀποδημίας καὶ δρακόντων φύσεις καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ ὅσα ἥδε ἡ συγ
γραφὴ πεπονημένως ἔχει καὶ φυλάττει, περιέρχομαι . . . (NA, ep., p. ,
lines –)
But I myself, on behalf of foxes and lizards and dung-beetles and serpents and
lions, and what the leopard does and how the stork is an affectionate creature
and that the nightingale is a melodious creature and what a philosophical

 X. Mem. ...
 Cf. Men. Dysc. –. Claiming that an enemy eats raw flesh as a way of marking his/her savage
quality is a theme that goes back to Homer; see Il. .– and Od. .–.
 Cf. Men. Dysc. –.
 Conclusion 
creature the elephant is and the shapes of fish and the migrations of cranes
and the natures of snakes and the rest, whatever this book elaborately
contains and preserves, these I survey.

Aelian’s turn toward animal life may seem incomprehensible if not sav-
age to sophists who are more interested in declaiming in palaces and to
philosophers who pursue putatively more lofty subjects. But whatever the
cost to his reputation, Aelian implicates himself in animal life with zeal and
without regret. As refined literary fragments demonstrating compositional
variety and a persistent interest in the intertwining of human and animal
lives, the collection of Rustic Letters reflects in miniature the more expansive
De natura animalium, Aelian’s greatest work.

Conclusion
The Rustic Letters are probably the earliest of Aelian’s surviving works,
but this is by no means certain. They reflect literary trends of the Second
Sophistic, especially the cultivation of a simple Attic style, the recreation of
a rustic Greek past, the popularity of literary collections and compilations,
and an interest in fictional epistolography. Aelian may have been primar-
ily influenced by the epistolary collection of Alciphron, but there is no
scholarly consensus on this point. Apart from the influence of individual
writers either past or contemporary, Aelian would have gained experience
in êthopoiia during his rhetorical education in Praeneste or Rome. If the
Rustic Letters were an early product of his literary career, composed perhaps
in the s, then they may have been the primary basis for Philostratus’
remark in the Lives of the Sophists that Aelian could speak the Athenian
dialect as well as anyone from the Attic heartland (VS ).
In one sense, the Athenian farmers’ entanglement with animal life is
unproblematic. Thus in Ep. , Komarkhides casually expresses his affection
for the animals on Dropides’ farm without concern that this affection will in
any way diminish his character. Similarly, in Ep.  Baiton rhapsodizes about
his stolen bees, which he imagines as his daughters. Anthropomorphism
of this kind contributes to the rustic charm of the letters. In another sense,
though, entanglement with animal life may be taken as the sign of an
uncivilized character. Consequently, one marks one’s humanity by one’s
distance from or superiority over animal life. Thus in Ep. , Khremes
thinks he gets the better of the soldier Thrasuleon who interrupted his
sexual encounter with a courtesan by implying that the soldier’s animal
 Animals and agroikoi in the Rustic Letters
name, “tangled up with a wild beast,” reflects his animal nature. Likewise
in Ep. , Phileriphos objects to the base, animal sexuality of Simulos’ son:
if he is going to act like an animal, then Phileriphos will treat him like an
animal, proposing to castrate the boy as one would a goat or a boar. The
humor and irony in the letters, though, is that characters like Khremes and
Phileriphos appear to be unaware of their own animal behavior.
Finally, in the exchange of letters between Kallipides and Knemon
(Ep. –) it is clear that rustic subjectivity is formed not only by contrast
with a presumed urban other, but also by the contrast between tame and
savage variations of rusticity. Kallipides claims tameness of character (τὸ
ἥμερον τοῦ τρόπου, Ep. ) for himself and for his fellows who adhere to
certain conventions of rustic life, especially being a friendly neighbor and
participating in the communal θυσία in honor of Pan. Knemon is, by con-
trast, “savage” (ἄγριος), a characterization that he himself does not reject.
But the correspondence reveals that the terms are open to contestation, as
the putatively savage Knemon reveals himself to be a moral philosopher
as much as a misanthrope, while Kallipides reveals the licentious, animal
sexuality at the heart of the rustics’ communal worship of Pan.
The Rustic Letters and the NA have much in common. Both are col-
lections of refined literary fragments and both reflect an intense interest
in the relationship between human and animal. Furthermore, Knemon’s
rejection of the conventions of rustic society by self-consciously becoming
animal (in writing, at least) parallels Aelian’s own self-portrayal in the epi-
logue of the NA, discussed in Chapter . As the reader imagines Knemon
retreating from the drunken revels of his fellow rustics, perhaps she may
also imagine him alone in his country house composing a monumental
animal miscellany.
 c h a p te r 3

The hazards of variety

Aelian and poikilia

Despite his paradoxical, countercultural self-portrait, Aelian’s compilatory
approach to literature was typical of his time. There was a long tradition
of literary miscellanies preceding Aelian, including works by Callimachus,
Varro, Seneca, Pliny the Elder, Plutarch, Pamphila of Epidauros, Favorinus
of Arelate, Aulus Gellius, Apuleius, Julius Pollux, Achilles Tatius, and
Galen. Similar texts written during or shortly after Aelian’s own lifetime
include Clement of Alexandria’s Stromateis; Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistai;
Julius Africanus’ Kestoi; Censorinus’ collection De die natali, in honor
of his patron Quintus Caerellius; and perhaps Lucius Ampelius’ Liber
memorialis. The disordered miscellany in particular was apparently so
much a literary fixture by the mid second century ce that Aulus Gellius,
in his preface to the Noctes Atticae, famously catalogues thirty titles such
as “The Muses,” “The Woods,” “The Field,” and even a “Fruit Basket”
(Πάγκαρπον) – all carefully thought up by his literary predecessors to
evoke the disorder of their own miscellaneous collections.
Given the abundance of such texts composed in the second and third
centuries, it is worth considering briefly what historical circumstances

 On the Aristotelian De mirabilibus auscultationibus, see Vanotti . On Varro, see Cardauns .
On Seneca, see Gross , Gauly , and Hine . On Pliny, see Beagon , , and
Murphy . On Plutarch, see König a. On Pamphila, see Holford-Strevens : – and
König and Whitmarsh . On Favorinus, see Barigazzi , Gleason , Holford-Strevens ,
and Keulen : –. On Gellius, see Anderson , Holford-Strevens , Gunderson ,
and Keulen . On Apuleius, see Mras , Opeku , Sandy , Harrison , Marangoni
, Lee , and La Rocca . On Julius Pollux, see Swain : , , , ; Conti Bizarro
; Theodorides ; Bearzot, Landucci, and Zecchini . On Achilles Tatius, see Morales
. On Galen, see Flemming .
 On Clement, see Wyrwa , Mayor , and Itter . On Athenaeus, see Braund and Wilkins
, McClure , and Jacob . On Julius Africanus, see Wallraff and Mecella . On
Censorinus, see Hofmann , Rapisarda , and Parker . On Ampelius, see Whitmarsh
 and König .
 Gel. pref. –. See Gunderson : –, and Keulen : –.


 The hazards of variety
encouraged this genre. The answer must surely be based in part on the
flourishing urban culture of the Empire, an extension and intensification
of the Alexandrian phenomenon of the Hellenistic age. The city of Ptole-
maic Alexandria, where the archive of Greek learning and literature was
institutionalized in the city’s great library, allowed compiler-artists such as
Callimachus and Eratosthenes to thrive and inspired a literary aesthetic
that would proliferate in the first centuries of the Roman Empire and
indeed throughout Byzantium. The interest in encyclopedic texts in Rome
may also, according to Claudia Moatti, have been a literary response to
the crisis of social breakdown and the political upheavals witnessed during
the final phases of the Republic, a collective attempt to recover, stabilize,
and (re)order the knowledge of the world in the face of radical change and
disruption. Alternatively, we may think of these miscellanies and encyclo-
pedias metaphorically as textual maps of the Imperial world, inextricably
implicated in Rome’s expansive geopolitical domination. Rome brought
about the “subsumption of the multifarious nations of the earth under a
single political framework,” and, as envisioned by König and Whitmarsh,
these encyclopedic texts, each ordering knowledge in its own way, mimic
the Imperial paradigm.
Pliny’s Natural History is a perfect example. While there is to be found
within individual chapters of the work a structural aesthetic of “intri-
cacy and variety,” the structure of the whole reflects a careful division
of the cosmos: the six opening books on astronomy and geography give
way to books on zoology, including human animals (–); then botany
and the medical uses of plants (–); and then finally metals, mining,
and minerals (–). As Trevor Murphy puts it, Pliny’s Natural History
“reconstitutes the world as a series of classifications built on contrasts or
antitheses.” A work of uncertain date but composed during or after the
reign of Hadrian, Lucius Ampelius’ Liber memorialis also reflects the impe-
rial impulse for imposing an order of classifications upon the cosmos as
well as for representing Rome as the climax of human civilization. The
work’s carefully ordered structure is reinforced by the imperial confidence
of Ampelius’ narrative voice: there is, according to Whitmarsh, “an answer
to everything . . . Ampelius presents himself as the vehicle of authoritative,
uncontentious, definitive knowledge.”
 Cf. Sidebottom : .  Moatti .  König and Whitmarsh : –.
 Murphy : .  Ibid. . See also Beagon  and .
 A second-century date is proposed by Arnaud-Lindet :  n. , though Whitmarsh : 
n.  is satisfied only by the secure internal evidence (a reference to Hadrian’s Olympieion, .)
allowing a terminus post quem of –.
 Whitmarsh : .
 Aelian and poikilia 
But there was also a body of Greek compilatory texts that rejected the
grand ordering systems imposed by the Latin texts of Pliny and Ampelius,
and in these Greek works by authors such as Favorinus, Achilles Tatius,
Athenaeus, and even the Christian writers Clement of Alexandria and
Julius Africanus, the aesthetic of poikilia is a recurring theme. The most
elaborate of these is of course Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistai, but even in this
work of maximal abundance there is an important overarching organi-
zational conceptualization: the literary symposium, a popular framework
for the compilation of miscellaneous knowledge from the fourth century
bce. Mimicking intellectual conversation lubricated by copious amounts
of wine, this genre was an ideal vehicle for accommodating and capitalizing
on the organic flow and semantic drift of the miscellanist’s compilatory
aesthetic. Aelian almost certainly knew the work of Athenaeus, who trans-
planted the Greek symposium to Rome and populated it with a cast of
prominent literati. Aelian also probably even used the Deipnosophistai as
a source for his own literary compilations. One can thus easily imagine
Aelian structuring the NA too as a symposium along the lines of the mas-
sive compilatory work that preceded and possibly even inspired him. But
instead Aelian pursued a different structural principle, and this difference
is noteworthy. To have written a sympotic conversation on the character
of animals would have been to subsume his natural subject matter beneath
the Hellenic social context par excellence, whereas Aelian’s stated intention
throughout is to demonstrate the value of animals in their own right, often
even as an indictment of the debased existence of humans.
Two other texts that beg comparison with Aelian’s NA are the con-
temporary didactic poems on fishing and hunting: Oppian’s Halieutika
and the Kunêgetika by an unknown Syrian author whose name was pos-
sibly also Oppian. There are numerous similarities in content between
Aelian’s work and these didactic poems, and it is generally believed that
all three works relied on common sources, though it is chronologically
possible that Aelian relied on the Halieutika; it remains unsettled to what
degree, if any, Aelian and the poet of the Kunêgetika, contemporaries of
one another, influenced each other. And yet, despite these similarities of
 Ibid. . On the Historia summiktos of Achilles Tatius, see Souda α .
 On the unity of the sympotic form with the content of the Deipnosophistai, see Romeri .
 See Stamm : –, Kindstrand : , and Whitmarsh : .
 On the authorship and background of the Oppianic poems, see Mair : xiii–lxxx, Bartley :
–, Benedetti , and Whitby . On Oppian and the epic tradition see Kneebone . On
the relationship between the Halieutika and Oppian’s Cilician background, see Lytle .
 On the sources of Aelian and Oppian, see Wellmann , a, b, , , , , ,
, . On Aelian’s use of the Halieutika, see Keydell .
 The hazards of variety
content, the differences are noteworthy. The Halieutika was composed in
honor of an emperor called simply Antoninus and his son, who is not
named, though the pair is now generally accepted to be Marcus Aurelius
and his son Commodus. Internal evidence suggests that the son held
the imperial power jointly with the father, thus dating the poem between
 and , when Marcus Aurelius died. The Kunêgetika, on the other
hand, boasts as its addressee the emperor Caracalla, “sweet child of Auso-
nian Zeus, Antoninus, whom great Domna bore to great Severus” (Opp.
C. .–), placing the poem some time after Caracalla took sole power,
thus between  and . These addressees are significant for compari-
son of the poems with Aelian’s text, for it is clear that their motivations
could not be more different. Although all three texts deal with the world
of animals and the relationships between animals and humans, Aelian’s
collection presents itself as the product of one who has turned away from
the centers of political power and who has renounced social ambition,
whereas the poems on fishing and hunting speak directly to imperial
power, whether or not their intended addressees ever actually read the
poems.
There are important structural differences between Aelian’s collection
and the didactic poems too. The poets of the Halieutika and Kunêgetika
were both influenced by the poikilos aesthetic: not only does each poet
wander casually from topic to topic, or from creature to creature within
individual books, but the didactic flow of the poems is regularly broken
up by elaborate epic similes, in what Adam Bartley has aptly termed the
poetic “ornamentation of the technical discourse.” This ornamentation
is precisely what makes the poems such a pleasure to read. And yet the
narrative poikilia of each poem is tempered by a large-scale organizational
scheme. The five books of the Halieutika treat, in order, () the various
species of fish, () the interactions of different fish, () the equipment and
skills required of the fisherman, () the fisherman’s exploitation of the
passions and desires of his prey, and () the hunting of sea monsters. The
four books of the Kunêgetika are likewise divided by topic: () an account of
the hunter, his skills, and equipment, () descriptions of the hunter’s prey,
() “the saw-toothed assembly of flesh-eating beasts and the tusked races”
(Opp. C. .–), and () an account of the hunt itself. The large-scale
organizational schemes of the Oppianic poems make the poikilia of Aelian’s
NA look far more thoroughly haphazard.

 Opp. H. ..  Bartley : .

 On the structure of the Kunêgetika, see Whitby : .
 Aelian and poikilia 
Rejecting topical organization and turning away from even such a dom-
inant cultural practice as the Greek symposium as its organizing principle,
the NA is therefore pure compilation, stripped of any overarching, contex-
tualizing framework apart from Aelian’s remarks in the preface and epi-
logue. The fruits of the author’s research and rewriting are strung together,
one after the other, in an arbitrary sequence of chapters defying logical
classification and orderly division. Aelian does not, it should be said, strive
for true randomness in the structure of the NA. An entire sequence of
entries, for example, may treat a similar zoological or geographic topic
(there might be a whole sequence of entries about horses, say, or about
the various creatures of Libya), and sometimes sequential entries are drawn
from a common source. Often enough, however, the juxtaposition of
entries has no apparent logic and thus awakens and challenges the reader’s
hermeneutic activity. Rejecting any large-scale principle of organization,
Aelian opts instead for a more organic approach that is mimetic of the
natural world.
And yet, despite the established practice of literary poikilia in Greek
literature of the Roman Empire, Aelian nevertheless feels the need to defend
himself. Anticipating the criticism of those who will be opposed to the
disorganized quality of his text, in the epilogue to the NA Aelian carefully
explains that his compositional choice was deliberate: avoiding a topical
organization by individual animal, he says that instead, “I mixed up even the
varied contents in a varied manner” (ἀνέμιξα δὲ καὶ τὰ ποικίλα ποικίλως,
NA ep., p. , line ). First, Aelian once again claims for himself an
intellectual independence, refusing literary and artistic fashions: “regarding
my own personal style, I am not the slave of another man’s judgment and
wish, and I deny that I must follow someone else wherever he might lead
me” (τὸ ἐμὸν ἴδιον οὔκ εἰμι τῆς ἄλλου κρίσεώς τε καὶ βουλήσεως δοῦλος,
οὐδέ φημι δεῖν ἕπεσθαι ἑτέρῳ, ὅποι μ’ ἂν ἀπάγῃ, lines –). We should
not take for granted as a rhetorical commonplace Aelian’s invocation of the
discourse of slavery to assert his artistic freedom. Independence and self-
mastery are prominent themes in many of Aelian’s animal narratives, and
when we consider the latent and sometimes explicit political orientation
of many of these stories (see Chapter ), we may read Aelian’s declaration
of independence here as part of his ongoing negotiation of the terms of
intellectual freedom amid the political and cultural domination of Severan
Rome.

 On the structural variety of the VH, see Johnson  and König b: –.
 Cf. Gellius’ emphasis on authority in the preface to the Attic Nights; see Keulen : –.
 The hazards of variety
Aelian then explains the rationale behind the unorganized structure of
his book:
δεύτερον δὲ τῷ ποικίλῳ τῆς ἀναγνώσεως τὸ ἐφολκὸν θηρῶν καὶ τὴν ἐκ
τῶν ὁμοίων βδελυγμίαν ἀποδιδράσκων, οἱονεὶ λειμῶνά τινα ἢ στέφανον
ὡραῖον ἐκ τῆς πολυχροίας, ὡς ἀνθεσφόρων τῶν ζῴων τῶν πολλῶν, ᾠήθην
δεῖν τήνδε ὑφᾶναί τε καὶ διαπλέξαι τὴν συγγραφήν. (NA ep., p. ,
lines –)
Second: since by means of variety I was hunting for something that would
entice reading and I was avoiding the nausea that comes from uniformity, I
thought I should weave and intertwine this collection as if it were a meadow
or garland in bloom with polychromatic variety, the many animals acting
like flower-bearers.
The metaphor with which Aelian begins this passage is interesting. By figur-
ing himself as author-hunter (θηρῶν), he turns the tables on contemporary
readers who happen also to be hunters in the real world, for those same
readers Aelian now imagines as his own prey, enticed into his prose-nets by
the lure of the pleasure that comes from poikilia. Aelian’s readers are thus
assimilated to the unfortunate animal prey that he depicts within the NA,
creatures like the skaros fish (.) or the porphura (.), caught because
of their own sexual incontinence and gluttony respectively. If he is not
careful, in other words, the reader’s indulgence in poikilia can transform
him into a slave of pleasure.
Furthermore, I mentioned above that by rejecting an overarching narra-
tive framework such as an imaginary symposium Aelian’s text was approx-
imating a randomness and organic flow that is mimetic of the natural
world. Yet a striking feature of Aelian’s natural imagery in the above expla-
nation is its very artificiality. He imagines his composition of the NA first
as a meadow, a plot of earth that yields its own natural growth. But then
immediately Aelian changes his mind: now his text is not a meadow but
a garland, something that must be woven and braided by human hands.
The image therefore emphasizes the artful shaping of nature by the writer’s
literary craft. The additional image of the book’s many animals acting as
flower-bearers further reinforces the artificiality, one might even say the
contrived quality of Aelian’s literary project.
But poikilia entails for Aelian more than a pleasing variety in the display
of his scholarly research; it also refers to the writer’s artfully constructed
prose, and in particular to his rich, allusive use of language. The rare poetic
word for flower-bearers (ἀνθεσφόρων) in the above passage, for example, is
 French : –.
 Aelian and poikilia 
worth considering. The word is not unanimously attested in the surviving
manuscripts (the similar variants ἀνθεοφόρων, ἀνθεοφόρος, ἀνθεοφόρον,
and ἀνθηφόρων are also attested), but the thirteenth-century manuscript
in which ἀνθεσφόρων does appear is considered a very good witness of
the text, and this is the reading chosen both by Hercher and by Garcı́a
Valdés, Llera Fueyo, and Rodrı́guez-Noriega Guillén. Intertextual analysis
strengthens this reading: the adjective ἀνθεσφόρος appears in two relevant
passages from Euripides, and then only twice more in the Onomastikon of
the second-century ce scholar Julius Pollux. The first messenger in Euripi-
des’ Bakkhai uses the word to describe the garlands of flowering bindweed
(στεφάνους μίλακος ἀνθεσφόρου, ) with which the Theban women
crown themselves on Mount Kithairon, and the messenger from Iphi-
geneia at Aulis uses the word to describe the flowering meadows (λείμακας
ἀνθεσφόρους, ) sacred to Artemis. Aelian’s use of the word in conjunc-
tion with the alternative images of a meadow or garland in bloom (λειμῶνά
τινα ἢ στέφανον ὡραῖον) triggers a strong intertextual relationship with the
Euripidean passages. In other words, the associative language of Aelian’s
prose garland sends out rhizomatic shoots, tendril-like, to connect with
various other poetic and literary networks.
And the specific allusions to Euripides here are more than merely imag-
istic, for both Euripidean passages describe the miraculous substitution
of animals for human subjects. In the Bakkhai, the women who crown
themselves with garlands of ivy, oak, and flowering bindweed are the same
women who, in the verses immediately before, had abandoned their own
infants in the city and were suckling baby deer and wolves in their arms
(–). In Iphigeneia at Aulis, the grove and flowering meadows of
Artemis are the site where Agamemnon’s daughter by divine intervention
is replaced on the sacrificial altar by a hind. The ending of the play is
notoriously corrupt, but Aelian himself has preserved the fragmentary evi-
dence for the miraculous appearance of Artemis at the end of the play
(NA .). Even if the description of Artemis’ flowering meadows (λεί-
μακας ἀνθεσφόρους) occurs at the very beginning of a scene with dubious
authorship, we might reasonably assume that Aelian was familiar with
multiple endings of the play that were then in circulation and that he
himself was not troubled by the authenticity of the messenger speech.
The scene’s graphic illustration of the violence that was inflicted upon the
innocent hind would certainly have haunted the author of the NA: “for a
hind was lying upon the earth gasping . . . the goddess’ altar was completely

 See Ameduri .  See West : –.

 The hazards of variety
splattered with its blood” (ἔλαφος γὰρ ἀσπαίρουσ’ ἔκειτ’ ἐπὶ χθονὶ . . . ἧς
αἵματι βωμὸς ἐραίνετ’ ἄρδην τῆς θεοῦ, –). We recall also that in
the Bakkhai, the peaceful image of the Theban women nurturing baby ani-
mals gives way to the maenadic hunt in which Agaue and her companions
mistake Pentheus for a lion and tear him limb from limb (–). The
Euripidean intertexts reveal that beneath Aelian’s oddly contrived poetic
image of animals bearing the flowers of a prose garland there are violent
literary echoes, an interpretation that is borne out when one considers also
the notice in Julius Pollux’s Onomastikon that the Anthesphoria (᾿Ανθεσ-
φόρια) was the name for the Sicilian festival commemorating the rape of
Persephone (..).
It is at this point in the epilogue to the NA that Aelian asserts his
position, mentioned in Chapter , that the scholarly pursuit of animals
is more noble than actually destroying them. But the question of the
violence directed against animals has already been suggested in the previous
sentence by the allusions to the Bakkhai and Iphigeneia at Aulis in Aelian’s
conjuring of the artificial image of animals acting as flower bearers for his
textual meadow or garland. The violent subtext in this image, evoking
human/animal sacrifice and a corruption of the ideal of man living in
harmony with nature, is, I argue, connected to Aelian’s anxiety, not just
about his choice of subject matter, but also about his aesthetic choice
to shape the entire collection according to the principles of variety and
disorder. This interpretation is reinforced by the fact that Aelian has already
employed violent imagery in the epilogue to the NA, when he describes
his ambitious peers and critics as being like the blade of a sword, “whetted
for honors and influence” (τεθηγμένων ἐς τιμάς τε καὶ δυνάμεις, NA ep.,
p. , lines –). That literary poikilia, so well established by the third
century ce, would trigger such defensiveness may seem surprising, but a
survey of the literary tradition shows that the tendency towards excessive
rhetorical or compositional variety could always be taken as a sign of
superficiality, of a lack of discipline, and of effeminate tastes.

A brief history of literary poikilia

In Homer, the adjective poikilos means “pattern-woven,” and the literal
weaving of Helen and Andromache in the Iliad and Penelope in the
Odyssey serves as a metaphor for the crafting of epic narrative. The
poikilos aesthetic was also prominent in the lyric poetry of the Archaic

 Nagy : –.

 A brief history of literary poikilia 
period. Sappho’s best-known poem even begins with “immortal Aphrodite
of the richly worked throne,” or in Nagy’s alternative rendering “Our Lady
of the varied pattern-woven floral love charms” (ποικιλόθρον’ ἀθανάτ’
᾿Αφρόδιτα, .), an invocation that serves as a miniature verse manifesto of
the aesthetic taste for the variegated, dappled style. By the fourth century
bce, however, poikilia had begun to arouse suspicions. While defending his
long career and describing the elevated rhetoric of contemporary orators,
Isocrates says that they “set forth facts in language that is rather poetic and
ornate” (τῇ λέξει ποιητικωτέρᾳ καὶ ποικιλωτέρᾳ τὰς πράξεις δηλοῦσιν,
Antidosis ), and that “everyone, on hearing these speeches, delights no
less than when they hear poetry composed in meter” (῟Ων ἅπαντες μὲν
ἀκούοντες χαίρουσιν οὐδὲν ἧττον ἢ τῶν ἐν τοῖς μέτροις πεποιημένων).
This pleasurable, poetic, and ornate style was practiced and taught by
Isocrates himself, and yet that style clearly needed to be defended, for the
speech known as the Antidosis was conceived as a response to an opponent
who slandered the power of Isocrates’ discourses as being harmful (διαβάλ-
λοντος δὲ τὴν τῶν λόγων τῶν ἐμῶν δύναμιν, ; εἰ βλαβεροῖς χρῶμαι τοῖς
λόγοις, ). Isocrates represented himself as a Socratic figure, a scapegoat
charged with endangering the youth of Athens. But whereas Socrates’ offi-
cial charges had a religious basis, Isocrates writes of his varied rhetorical
style as being itself a source of fear in Athens.
This mentality had been illustrated most clearly in the previous cen-
tury by the sophist Prodikos of Keos, who made a career wandering the
Greek world and delivering one of his most famous orations, the “Choice
of Herakles.” In the story, famously recounted in Xenophon’s Memora-
bilia, Herakles is encountered by two women. The one, Virtue (Arete), is
sparingly adorned with moral integrity, modesty, and prudence, all indi-
cated visually by her white gown. The other woman, Vice (Kakia), was the
image of poikilia, done up in deceptive make-up and draped in a gown
that boasted all the colors of flowers in springtime. Though Vice promises
great pleasure, Herakles obviously chooses Virtue. In the fourth century,
Aristotle provides a philosophical explanation why the style that produces
pleasure by means of variety could possibly be thought to be harmful:
“change of all things is sweet, as the poet says, because of some vice. For

 Nagy : .

 On literary poikilia in the Archaic period, with special attention to the poetic representation of
animals, see Fowler .
 Mirhady and Too : –.  Pl. Ap. b–c.
 On the relationship of literary poikilia to musical theory, see Briand : –.
 X. Mem. ..–; Philostr. VS .–, .  E. Or. .
 The hazards of variety
just as a man given to change is a man of vice, so too is the nature that is in
need of change, for it is neither simple nor appropriate” (EN b–).
Aristotle does not have literary poikilia specifically in mind, and he clearly
argues that certain pleasures may in fact be beneficial and “natural.”
Nevertheless, readers and writers who enjoy the varied style, especially in
its more exaggerated forms, may, according to this logic, be assimilated to
those who are “given to change” (εὐμετάβολοι) and are therefore themselves
“people of vice” (πονηροί).
In the following centuries, Aristotle’s negative ethical figuration of plea-
sure derived from variety began to have an impact on historiography, as
is illustrated in the methodological digression of Polubios, who contrasts
the spare, unembellished style of his universal history with the rhetorical
and compositional flourishes of more romantic historians (.). But such
ethical posturing did not prevent later writers from continuing to employ
rhetorical and compositional variety, though it did prompt defensiveness
regarding their literary choices. In the first century bce, Diodoros of Sicily
explains that he will from time to time allow in his historical Library the
kind of rhetorical and compositional flourishes criticized by Polubios: “for
since history needs to be adorned with poikilia, in some places it is nec-
essary to admit the assistance even of such passages” (..). Dionysius
of Halikarnassos, writing his universal history of Rome at the end of the
first century bce, took full advantage of the range of rhetorical devices
and compositional modes to create a mixed style (ἐξ ἁπάσης ἰδέας μικτὸν,
..) that appealed to different kinds of readers, “even to those who require
constant amusement in the reading of history.”
By the second century ce, romantic fiction had developed as the prose
genre par excellence for just such readers requiring constant amusement,
and rhetorical poikilia was one of its defining features. Achilles Tatius and
Longus even offer ekphrastic passages whose images of flowering trees,
meadows, intertwining branches, and wild animals reflect their novels’
interest in aesthetic variety. In Achilles Tatius’ Leukippe and Kleitophon
especially, there is a strong association between the poikilos literary style and
indulgence in excessive emotion. In one of his most sententious moments,
the novel’s narrator declares that, “Language is the father of all these [emo-
tions] and it is like when a bow hurls and hits its target and sends into the
soul its arrows and various missiles (ποικίλα τοξεύματα)” (.). Though
Achilles’ novel celebrates this aesthetic, delight in such passive emotional
 Arist. EN ..– = a–b.  See also D.H. Comp. , , .
 Ach. Tat. ., –; Longus prologue, .. On poikilia in novels, see Morales :  and Briand
.
 A brief history of literary poikilia 
suffering represented to more conservative sensibilities the worst kind of
vice.
In the literature of the third century, the pervasiveness of poikilia did
not, however, eradicate its associations with effeminacy. In the Life of
Apollonios, for example, Philostratus could champion his philosophical
hero by likening him to the variable and changing Egyptian god Proteus
(ὡς ποικίλος τε ἦν καὶ ἄλλοτε ἄλλος, .), while in the Lives of the Sophists
the same author uses the effeminacy of poikilia to slander his namesake,
Philostratus the Egyptian,
Κλεοπάτρᾳ μὲν συμφιλοσοφοῦντα τῇ βασιλίδι, σοφιστὴν δὲ προσρηθέντα,
ἐπειδὴ λόγου ἰδέαν πανηγυρικὴν ἥρμοστο καὶ ποικίλην, γυναικὶ ξυνών, ᾗ
καὶ αὐτὸ τὸ φιλολογεῖν τρυφὴν εἶχεν, ὅθεν καὶ παρῴδουν τινὲς ἐπ’ αὐτῷ
τόδε τὸ ἐλεγεῖον·
πανσόφου ὀργὴν ἴσχε Φιλοστράτου, ὃς Κλεοπάτρᾳ
νῦν προσομιλήσας τοῖος ἰδεῖν ἐφάνη. (VS )

a philosopher at the side of the queen Cleopatra who was also called a sophist
because he adopted the panegyric and ornamental style in the company of a
woman for whom even philology itself contained luxurious pleasure. For this
reason some people used to parody him with this couplet: “Have the natural
impulse of all-wise Philostratus: now that he associates with Cleopatra, he
looks like her.”
This ambiguity surrounding poikilia can be perceived throughout Aelian’s
literary works. For Aelian, rhetorical variety goes beyond the poetic inter-
weaving of mere words and phrases; when he writes that he has “mixed
up even the varied contents in a varied manner,” he takes what was orig-
inally a pleasurable rhetorical patterning and defines it as the organizing
principle of his entire work. Aelian is not explicit on this point, but the
preceding survey of poikilia in Greek literature and thought makes it clear:
the criticism Aelian anticipates is that excessive literary poikilia is either
the crutch of an undisciplined writer or appeals too much to readerly plea-
sure, suggesting an overindulgence that is the mark of effeminate tastes.
Even Aelian’s attempt to neutralize such implications could, however, be
subverted. Although in the epilogue of the NA he matter-of-factly defends
compositional poikilia as a means of enticing the reader, elsewhere in his
literary corpus Aelian himself propagates the mentality that the flowery,

 Cf. Hom. Od. .–. On the Protean qualities of Philostratus himself, see Elsner : , –.
In the fifth century, Nonnos of Panopolis will evoke Proteus to illustrate both the metamorphic
quality of his poem as well the multiform Dionysus himself (.–). Unlike Philostratus, however,
Nonnos in the Dionysiaka celebrates the effeminacy of his divine epic hero.
 The hazards of variety
variegated style is ethically dubious: poikilia is associated with Eastern lux-
ury, tyranny, corrupt urban sophistication, and feminine erotic seduction.
So potent was the moral and sexual ambiguity of poikilia in antiquity that
it became a recurring motif in the classicizing literature of the Aesthetes
in the nineteenth century, connoting the figure of the androgyne boy and
signaling a style associated with male homoeroticism.
In connection with the ambiguous gendering of his chosen literary
style, a word must be said here also about the cultural implications of
Aelian’s use of artistic poikilia. Though Aelian follows a long tradition
in using poikilia as an element of Eastern stereotype in his accounts of,
for example, Alexander the Great’s all too easy adoption of Persian luxury
or the erotic enticements of a Syrian hetaira, one finds nevertheless the
following interesting notice in the pages of the VH:
Οἱ πάλαι ᾿Αθηναῖοι ἁλουργῆ μὲν ἠμπείχοντο ἱμάτια, ποικίλους δὲ ἐνέδυνον
χιτῶνας· κορύμβους δὲ ἀναδούμενοι τῶν ἐν τῇ κεφαλῇ τριχῶν, χρυσοῦς
ἐνείροντες αὐταῖς τέττιγας καὶ κόσμον ἄλλον πρόσθετον περιαπτόμενοι
χρυσοῦ προῄεσαν. καὶ ὀκλαδίας αὐτοῖς δίφρους οἱ παῖδες ὑπέφερον, ἵνα
μὴ καθίζωσιν ἑαυτοὺς εἰκῇ καὶ ὡς ἔτυχε. τοιοῦτοι δὲ ὄντες τὴν ἐν Μαραθῶνι
μάχην ἐνίκησαν. (VH .)
The ancient Athenians used to wrap themselves in purple garments, and
they used to wear embroidered tunics. And they used to go out with their
hair bound up on the top of their heads, with golden grasshoppers inserted
in, and adorning themselves with additional ornamentation of gold. And
their slaves used to provide folding chairs so that they might not have to
seat themselves at random and as chance would have it. These are the kind
of men who won the battle at Marathon.
The point is an old one, appearing first in the opening pages of Thucy-
dides’ History, but it must have come as a jolt in the context of the
Hellenizing culture of the early third century ce, in which writers prized
Attic purity above all else and fantasized about earthy rustics as a source of
ancient wisdom. Consider, for example, Aelian’s Rustic Letters, Philostratus’
Heroikos, his depiction of Agathion, Herodes’ Attic “Herakles” (VS –
), and even Philostratus’ remark that Aelian could speak the Athenian
dialect as well as anyone from the Attic heartland (VS ). It was an
unwelcome surprise, therefore, to be reminded that the brave Athenians
who were victorious at Marathon were as vulnerable to luxury as Persians,
 NA ..–; VH ., ., .; Ep. ; fr. d Domingo-Forrasté (.– Hercher).
 See Dowling  and Laity : –.  Th. .. See also Ath. b–c.
 Whitmarsh : –, : –. See also Hodkinson : –, who argues for an
intertextual relationship between the Heroikos and Plato’s Phaedrus.
 A brief history of literary poikilia 
Syrians, Phoenicians, and Egyptians. Destabilizing the binary schematiza-
tion between the manly, rustic West and the luxurious East, Aelian’s para-
doxographical notice makes contemporary readers confront the ground-
lessness of their nostalgic fantasies. Despite that he may himself from time
to time reinforce the old stereotypes, Aelian also energetically explores alter-
natives, as when he invites his critics to raise a suspicious eyebrow at the
fact that such a conservative Roman as himself could be so self-indulgent
in his literary tastes.
It is in response to this background of implied suspicion about the
effeminacy of his literary persona that Aelian declares his book’s masculine
usefulness and workmanlike quality. The NA is clearly not organized along
scientific principles or as a developed philosophical argument, and so apart
from indulging in the literary pleasure that the book offers, why would
someone want to read a massive collection of anecdotes and curiosities
about the animal world? In the preface to the NA Aelian offers his book as
a kind of manual to some further end: “If this collection seems profitable
to anyone, let him use it” (εἰ δέ τῳ καὶ ἄλλῳ φανεῖται ταῦτα λυσιτελῆ,
χρήσθω αὐτοῖς, lines –). Aelian has in mind here not those with
expertise in the study of nature, but precisely the non-specialist, hence
his explanation that he has avoided technical vocabulary and “clothed the
collected material in everyday language” (περιβαλὼν αὐτοῖς τὴν συνήθη
λέξιν, –). But if the book was not for specialists, then who was its
intended primary audience? Diane Louise Johnson and Caroline Stamm
have argued that Aelian wrote the VH for an audience of young men
still acquiring paideia and training in rhetoric, and the narratives in
both the NA and the VH may well have served students as models for the
development of muthoi (“fables/myths”) or khreiai, the “concise” and “well-
aimed” anecdotes that could be incorporated into a speech or employed
in an argument to support the speaker’s point. Even if Aelian himself had
turned away from the world of public declamation (a move that in itself
put his masculine authority into question), he could nevertheless offer his
book as a scholarly contribution to the manly training of future sophists.
Aelian offers, however, another possible reader: addressing anyone who
does not find his book particularly useful, he bids him “give it to his

 On “usefulness” in Gellius’ preface to the Attic Nights, see Gunderson : – and Keulen
: –.
 Johnson  and Stamm : –.  Nicol.  Felten (Kennedy : ).
 On muthoi, see Kennedy : –, –, , –, and –. On khreiai, see Kennedy
: –, –, –, –, –.
 Cf. Sen. Con. .pr.– and Gunderson : –.
 The hazards of variety
father to cherish and honor” (ἐάτω τῷ πατρὶ θάλπειν τε καὶ περιέπειν,
NA pr., lines –). The remark suggests a generational gap that is at
least as old as the strained father–son relationship between Strepsiades and
Pheidippides in Aristophanes’ Clouds, only here the scenario is transferred
from Athens to a contemporary Roman setting. If the NA does not appeal
to Rome’s urban society who have no time for such things, then perhaps it
will find an audience with their more earthy fathers. Aelian here taps into
the contemporary valorization of the rustic wisdom of an older generation,
as well as what Erik Gunderson has identified as Roman declamation’s
emphasis on paternity. Writing an animal miscellany, like declamation,
might seem like child’s play, but by appealing to the father Aelian reinscribes
the authority of his text. But that authority is (as ever) tenuous: even when
he imagines the appreciation of the older generation, Aelian’s language
betrays indulgence in an intense pleasure, not the practicality of rhetorical
training or the authority that comes with acquiring specialized knowledge.
The primary meaning of the verb θάλπειν, here applied to the father who
will “cherish” Aelian’s book, is to lend heat or warmth, and in poetry it
metaphorically denotes erotic passion. Aelian’s imagery here of heat and
burning passion is therefore consistent with his own erotic self-presentation
in the epilogue: “passion for learning, a passion that is both an intimate
companion and part of my nature, inflames me” (ἔρως με σοφίας ὁ σύνοικός
τε καὶ ὁ συμφυὴς ἐξέκαυσεν, NA ep., p. , lines –).

Answering the critics

Aelian realizes that not everyone will have the same passion for his book,
though that is hardly his fault: ultimately there is no accounting for taste,
“for not everything to everyone is beautiful, nor to everyone does every-
thing seem worthy of study” (οὐ γὰρ πάντα πᾶσι καλά, οὐδὲ ἄξια δοκεῖ
σπουδάσαι πᾶσι πάντα, NA pr., lines –). Defending his aesthetic and
stylistic choices with yet another allusive gesture, Aelian’s remark directs
the reader to a specific passage in the discussion of beauty and aesthetic
relativism in the Platonic dialogue Hippias Major, as Socrates asks his
interlocutor:
῾Ομολογήσομεν οὖν τοῦτο, ὦ ῾Ιππία, πάντα τὰ τῷ ὄντι καλὰ καὶ νόμιμα καὶ
ἐπιτηδεύματα καὶ δοξάζεσθαι καλὰ εἶναι καὶ φαίνεσθαι ἀεὶ πᾶσιν, ἢ πᾶν

 Ar. Nu. –.  Gunderson : –.

 A. Pr. , ; S. Tr. , El. ; Herod. ..
 Answering the critics 
τοὐναντίον ἀγνοεῖσθαι καὶ πάντων μάλιστα ἔριν καὶ μάχην περὶ αὐτῶν
εἶναι καὶ ἰδίᾳ ἑκάστοις καὶ δημοσίᾳ ταῖς πόλεσιν; (Pl. Hp.Ma. c–d)
Shall we agree on this, then, Hippias, that all established customs and
practices that are really beautiful are thought to be beautiful and seem to be
beautiful always to everyone? Or is it the complete opposite, that they are
ignorant and that above all there is great strife and battle about these things,
both in private among individual citizens and in public among cities?
The sophist Hippias of course concedes that the second of the two is the
case, that what appears beautiful is the source of the greatest discord among
men. Their conversation goes on to postulate that that which is useful is the
essence of beauty, a possibility that occurred to Aelian when countering his
critics: “If this collection seems profitable to anyone, let him make use of
it” (εἰ δέ τῳ καὶ ἄλλῳ φανεῖται ταῦτα λυσιτελῆ, χρήσθω αὐτοῖς, NA pr.,
lines –). But that postulate fails too under Socrates’ scrutiny, and after
several more pages of Socrates’ aporetic philosophizing, Hippias has had
enough, steadfast now in his belief that what is beautiful for him is to be able
to stand up in court or a council chamber or before some political authority
and to speak persuasively, securing his own salvation, the salvation of his
property, and the salvation of his loved ones. It will be remembered too
that at the beginning of the dialogue, Hippias boasts of how lucrative his
profession has been. Aelian’s allusion to the Hippias Major in the preface
prepares the reader for the literary persona that emerges in the epilogue,
where Aelian claims that he too could have been one of those sophists, a
figure like Hippias, raising an arrogant brow and performing in palaces;
instead he has retreated into his own world of scholarship and writing. The
allusion to the Hippias Major also offers a glimpse of the Socratic model
upon which Aelian has partially based his literary persona. Responding to
Hippias, Socrates has the last word in the dialogue, content with his lot in
life that he is always ill spoken of and rebuked by his peers as he travels
philosophy’s difficult, lonely path towards truth.
Aelian too declares his commitment to truth (φίλη δὲ ἡ ἀλήθειά μοι, NA
ep., p. , line ), but unlike Socrates, Aelian shifts in multiple directions,
depending on the criticism against which he must defend himself. If the
aesthetic poikilia of his collection seems too florid, lacking in discipline
and even effeminate, he may hold up his book as something useful for
the student of rhetoric. But should professional sophists scoff at animal
narratives as being trivial and hardly useful, Aelian emphasizes the labor
 Pl. Hp.Ma. –.  Ibid. a–b.  Ibid. e.  Ibid. e–e.
 The hazards of variety
that has been spent and the rhetorical craft that has been perfected in
preparing his book: labor and craft that are in fact worthy of the literary
giants who preceded him. “And if I was born after the many wise men
who came first,” he writes at the end of the prologue, “let not my assigned
place in time detract from my praise if I too should offer some knowledge
worthy of study for its more than ample research and for its language” (NA
pr., lines –). Though subject matter and structure may be criticized as
self-indulgent, one will at least find in the pages of the NA the mark of an
energetic scholar and a talented literary stylist.
Aelian concludes his epilogue too by emphasizing his skill and sophisti-
cation as a writer:
ὅπως δὲ αὐτὰ εἶπον καὶ σὺν ὅσῳ πόνῳ, τό τε εὐγενὲς τῆς λέξεως ὁποῖον
καὶ τῆς συνθήκης, τῶν τε ὀνομάτων καὶ τῶν ῥημάτων τὸ κάλλος, ὁπό
σοις ἂν μὴ χρήσωμαι πονηροῖς κριταῖς, ἐκεῖνοι εἴσονται. (NA ep., p. ,
lines –)
And in what manner I said these things, and with what labor, both the noble
quality of the diction and composition, and the beauty of the words and
expressions: however many I might not regard as worthless judges, they will
know these things.

In this concluding sentence to the NA Aelian bids farewell to his readers

with allusion to yet another Euripidean passage, for the final subordinate
clause, “however many I might not regard as worthless judges” (ὁπόσοις
ἂν μὴ χρήσωμαι πονηροῖς κριταῖς), nearly quotes the words of Orestes
in Euripides’ Elektra. Sounding every bit the sophist, Orestes defends his
sister’s impoverished husband by questioning how anyone might truly
distinguish quality of character:
οὐκ ἔστ’ ἀκριβὲς οὐδὲν εἰς εὐανδρίαν·
ἔχουσι γὰρ ταραγμὸν αἱ φύσεις βροτῶν.
ἤδη γὰρ εἶδον ἄνδρα γενναίου πατρὸς
τὸ μηδὲν ὄντα, χρηστὰ δ’ ἐκ κακῶν τέκνα, 
λιμόν τ’ ἐν ἀνδρὸς πλουσίου φρονήματι,
γνώμην δὲ μεγάλην ἐν πένητι σώματι.
πῶς οὖν τις αὐτὰ διαλαβὼν ὀρθῶς κρινεῖ;
πλούτῳ; πονηρῷ τἄρα χρήσεται κριτῆι.
ἢ τοῖς ἔχουσι μηδέν; ἀλλ’ ἔχει νόσον 
πενία, διδάσκει δ’ ἄνδρα τῆι χρείαι κακόν.
ἀλλ’ εἰς ὅπλ’ ἐλθών; τίς δὲ πρὸς λόγχην βλέπων
μάρτυς γένοιτ’ ἂν ὅστις ἐστὶν ἁγαθός;
κράτιστον εἰκῆι ταῦτ’ ἐᾶν ἀφειμένα.
...
 Answering the critics 
οὐ μὴ φρονήσεθ’, οἳ κενῶν δοξασμάτων 
πλήρεις πλανᾶσθε, τῇ δ’ ὁμιλίᾳ βροτοὺς
κρινεῖτε καὶ τοῖς ἤθεσιν τοὺς εὐγενεῖς;
(E. El. –)

There’s no precision in judging good character, for there is no continuity

in human nature. I have seen the son of a noble father be himself a good
for nothing, and good children come from wicked parents. I have seen
starvation in the heart of a wealthy man, and great intellect in a poor man’s
body. How then will someone judge correctly when distinguishing between
these things? By means of wealth? He’ll regard that as a worthless judge
indeed. Or by those who have nothing? But poverty carries with it distress
and through lack it teaches man to be wicked. Or when one goes into
battle? But who, when he faces a spear, would be a good witness of who is
a good man? The best thing is to concede that these things are produced at
random . . . Will you not be sensible, you who deceive yourselves full of vain
fancies, and won’t you judge noble men by the company that they keep and
by their characters?
Orestes describes wealth as a “worthless judge” of character, and Aelian
voices a similar disdain for wealth in the epilogue of the NA, where he
distinguishes himself from contemporaries who are always on the lookout
for profit. But Aelian’s allusion to this passage does more than provide a
classical precedent for his disdain of wealth. Orestes calls for new criteria
in the judgment of “noble men” (βροτοὺς . . . τοὺς εὐγενεῖς), rejecting the
traditional bases for moral evaluation – breeding, wealth, poverty, martial
valor – all as “vain fancies,” and basing his new morality on individual
character and on the character of one’s friends. Returning to the concluding
sentence of the NA, we see that Aelian too calls for a similar redefinition
of what counts as “noble.” His allies – those whom he does not regard
as worthless judges – will know “both the noble (εὐγενές) quality of the
diction and composition, and the beauty of the words and expressions.”
In the face of his opponents’ criticisms, then, Aelian claims for himself
nobility of character not on the basis of their evaluative criteria – wealth,

 Both Diogenes Laertius (., see below) and ps.-Longinus (., without citation of author or
work) quote line . However, a single sixteenth-century manuscript of D. L. (cod. Monacensis
gr. ) cites the source not as Euripides’ Elektra, but the same poet’s lost play Auge (ἐν τῇ Αὔγῃ).
Long’s OCT edition of D. L. does not rely on the testimony of this manuscript, but instead
prints the reading of the thirteenth-century cod. Laurentianus . (ἐν τῇ αὐτοῦ, “in his [poem?
play?]”). Nevertheless, on the basis of the sixteenth-century manuscript of D. L., Wilamowitz
deleted lines – from the text of Euripides’ Elektra, while Reeve deletes lines –, and
Murray considered lines – suspect. These lines may well have originated in the Auge and
somehow snuck into the text of Elektra, but there is no reason to doubt that this is the version of
the speech from Euripides’ Elektra with which Aelian was familiar in the third century.
 The hazards of variety
reputation, declamatory skill – but through the art of literary composition.
Nobility for Aelian is now a quality of language and structure (συνθήκη)
that he equates with the beauty (κάλλος) of his prose. On this reading,
poikilia too, the very principle guiding the compositional structure of the
NA, must be understood as an essential ingredient contributing to the
work’s overall aesthetic nobility.
But even while he attempts to redefine nobility according to his own
literary aesthetics, Aelian’s allusion to the Euripidean passage also ironically
perpetuates the anxiety surrounding the moral integrity of his work. The
speech of Orestes from Euripides’ Elektra was well known in antiquity
for its connection to an anecdote about Socrates that was in circulation
even when Aelian lived and worked at Rome in the third century ce.
Aelian’s contemporary Diogenes Laertius tells the story in his Lives of the
Philosophers:
Εὐριπίδου δ’ ἐν τῇ αὐτοῦ εἰπόντος περὶ ἀρετῆς,
κράτιστον εἰκῇ ταῦτ’ ἐᾶν ἀφειμένα,
ἀναστὰς ἐξῆλθε, φήσας γελοῖον εἶναι ἀνδράποδον μὲν μὴ εὑρισκόμενον
ἀξιοῦν ζητεῖν, ἀρετὴν δ’ οὕτως ἐᾶν ἀπολωλέναι. (D.L. .)
And when Euripides in his play said about virtue that, “the best thing is to
concede that these things are produced at random,” [Socrates] stood up and
walked out, saying that it was laughable to think it worth looking for a slave
when he can’t be found, but to allow virtue to die in this way.
The very same passage that serves Aelian as a justification for his literary
aesthetic was also the cause of Socrates’ moral indignation. It will be
remembered that in the preface to the NA, Aelian represented himself
as a Socratic figure, a countercultural pariah rebuked by his Hippias-like
peers. But this anecdote reminds that Socrates himself would have bristled
at Aelian’s apparently radical redefinition of what is noble according to
what suits his own tastes. Furthermore, there is a clear affinity between
Orestes’ assertion that virtues are produced “at random” (εἰκῇ) and the
seeming randomness of Aelian’s literary poikilia. This is the same word
that Photios uses to describe the similar compositional style of Pamphila,
who wrote her Historical Notes “at random (εἰκῇ) and as each thing came
to her . . . thinking that mixture and variety (ποικιλίαν) were more pleasant
and more graceful than division by single topic (τοῦ μονοειδοῦς).” Aelian
echoes Pamphila’s rationale for her artistic choice when he says in the

 This is the text as it appears in Long’s OCT edition of D. L.

 Phot. Bibl. b–. See König and Whitmarsh : .
 Conclusion 
epilogue of the NA that, “by means of variety (τῷ ποικίλῳ) I was hunting
for something that would entice reading and I was avoiding the nausea
that comes from uniformity (ἐκ τῶν ὁμοίων)” (p. , lines –). But it
is precisely that appearance of randomness in human nature that outrages
Socrates: the impossibility of ever being certain in what person virtue will
appear creates a morally ambiguous view of the world at odds with Socrates’
commitment to philosophical truth. And so, despite that Aelian himself
summons Socrates as his role model for the serious intellectual in a world of
career-minded sophists, the figure of Socrates nevertheless haunts cultural
memory to remind that Aelian’s literary aesthetic is quite distant from
the path of philosophy. For Socrates, nobility and virtue were not just a
question of style, to be redefined according to literary tastes, but the objects
of serious, challenging philosophical inquiry. It was philosophy, after all,
that allowed Socrates finally to appreciate the meaning of the proverb that
“all that is beautiful is difficult” (Χαλεπὰ τὰ καλά).
But to this criticism, Aelian would have responded that it was naı̈ve
for Socrates or anyone else to think that the creation of artful poikilia in a
refined literary style is easy. On the contrary, Aelian emphasizes the difficult
labor (ponos) required to produce the structural variety and the honeyed
prose of his scholarly treasure.

Conclusion
A long, rich tradition of miscellany writing preceded Aelian, and this
genre may even be said to be characteristic of Roman Imperial liter-
ary expression. Aelian was, however, unique in treating a single topic –
animals – but applying to that topic a thoroughly developed stylistic and
structural poikilia. Aelian’s NA rejects completely any large-scale organiza-
tion by topic, and he also rejects the sympotic framework, since that was
too obviously an expression of human culture. Aelian’s structural choice,
on the other hand, allows the illusion that the NA presents animals on
their own terms and not circumscribed by human culture. But Aelian is
also self-consciously aware of the literary art required to conjure his illusion
of nature.
And yet Aelian also feels the need to defend his compositional choice.
That defensiveness is even reflected in literary allusions to Euripides’
Bakkhai and Iphigeneia at Aulis that evoke themes of human/animal sacri-
fice and a corruption of the ideal of man living in harmony with nature.

 Pl. Hp.Ma. e.  NA pr., lines –; ep., p. , line .

 The hazards of variety
Despite the fact that poikilia was a literary fashion in Imperial Rome, it
never completely lost its negative moral associations. The tendency towards
excessive rhetorical or compositional variety could always be taken as a sign
of superficiality, of a lack of discipline, and of effeminate tastes. This is
borne out by a survey of the development of poikilia in prose literature
from the Classical period to Aelian’s day.
Aelian therefore feels compelled to respond to critics who he imagines
will target his compositional choice as an artistic and/or moral failure. To
these critics, Aelian minimizes the appeal to pleasure inherent in poikilia
and instead argues for the usefulness of the NA; that it will attract older,
more conservative readers (“fathers”); and that it is a testament to his own
skills as a scholar and writer.
An allusion to the conversation on aesthetics in the Platonic Hippias
Major figures Aelian as a Roman Socrates, a lonely intellectual in a world
filled with career-minded sophists. In the final sentence of the NA, Aelian
once again emphasizes his writerly achievement, quoting a well-known
line from Euripides that reinforces Aelian’s redefinition of nobility and
virtue as the refinement of a literary art. But that same allusion to Euripi-
des also evokes a famous anecdote about Socrates, who angrily left the
theater when confronted by the moral relativism depicted onstage. And
so although Aelian attempts to figure himself as an independent intellec-
tual like Socrates, the anxiety persists that Socrates himself would have
questioned the philosophical integrity of Aelian’s composition. But the
scowling Socrates of Aelian’s philosophical imagination is not so powerful
as to overwhelm the NA or Aelian’s commitment that the development of
literary poikilia in a refined style is a worthy endeavor.
 c h a p te r 4

The Hellenized Roman

The birds of Diomedes

This chapter arises out of the paradox that Aelian was praised by his
contemporaries for his commitment to maintaining Roman identity and
yet he refuses to self-identify as Roman within the NA, distancing himself
from important aspects of Roman culture and citing not a single Latin
source in the whole collection. An explanation for this paradox is of course
Aelian’s cultivation of a Greek literary persona. But given that the NA offers
itself as a critique of contemporary human morality, the question of how
Aelian deals with Roman culture in the performance of Greek paideia is
central to an understanding of the NA. This is clear from the collection’s
programmatic first entry:
Καλεῖταί τις Διομήδεια νῆσος, καὶ ἐρωδιοὺς ἔχει πολλούς. οὗτοι, φασί,
τοὺς βαρβάρους οὔτε ἀδικοῦσιν οὔτε αὐτοῖς προσίασιν· ἐὰν δὲ ῞Ελλην
κατάρῃ ξένος, οἳ δὲ θείᾳ τινὶ δωρεᾷ προσίασι πτέρυγας ἁπλώσαντες οἱονεὶ
χεῖράς τινας ἐς δεξίωσίν τε καὶ περιπλοκάς. καὶ ἁπτομένων τῶν ῾Ελλήνων
οὐχ ὑποφεύγουσιν, ἀλλ’ ἀτρεμοῦσι καὶ ἀνέχονται, καὶ καθημένων ἐς τοὺς
κόλπους καταπέτονται, ὥσπερ οὖν ἐπὶ ξένια κληθέντες. λέγονται οὖν
οὗτοι Διομήδους ἑταῖροι εἶναι καὶ σὺν αὐτῷ τῶν ὅπλων τῶν ἐπὶ τὴν ῎Ιλιον
μετεσχηκέναι, εἶτα τὴν προτέραν φύσιν ἐς τὸ τῶν ὀρνίθων μεταβαλόντες
εἶδος, ὅμως ἔτι καὶ νῦν διαφυλάττειν τὸ εἶναι ῞Ελληνές τε καὶ Φιλέλληνες.
(NA .)
There is an island said to belong to Diomedes, and it has many shearwa-
ters [long-winged seabirds]. These, they say, neither harm barbarians nor
approach them. But if a Greek foreigner puts into port, they by some divine
gift approach, unfurling their wings like hands to receive and embrace them.
And when Greeks touch them they do not flee, but remain motionless and
allow it, and they fly down into their laps when they sit down, as if sum-
moned to a banquet. These then are said to be the companions of Diomedes
and to have had a share with him of the arms against Troy; then having
 Philostr. VS .–.


 The Hellenized Roman
changed their former nature into the shape of birds, nevertheless they are
said still even now to protect their identity as Greeks and lovers of Greeks.
Most of the time in the NA, Aelian does not indicate his literary sources,
and in this sense, the entry about the birds of Diomedes is typical; instead
we get passive verbs (καλεῖται) or verbs with vague third-person subjects
(φασί). A similar passage on the birds of Diomedes is, however, preserved
in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder, who cites as his source Juba II
King of Mauretania:
Nec Diomedias praeteribo aves. Iuba cataractas vocat, et eis esse dentes
oculosque igneo colore cetero candidis tradens . . . uno hae in loco totius
orbis visuntur, in insula, quam diximus nobilem Diomedis tumulo atque
delubro contra Apuliae oram, fulicarum similes. advenas barbaros clangore
infestant, Graecis tantum adulantur miro discrimine, velut generi Diomedis
hoc tribuentes, aedemque eam cotidie pleno gutture madentibus pinnis
perluunt atque purificant, unde origo fabulae Diomedis socios in earum
effigies mutatos. (Plin. Nat. .–)
And I shall not pass over the birds of Diomedes. Juba calls them cataractae
[diving birds], reporting that they have teeth and eyes the color of fire, but
that the rest of them is pure white . . . These birds are seen in only one place
on earth: on an island that I have said is noteworthy for the tomb and
sanctuary of Diomedes, an island opposite the shore of Apulia. The birds
are like coots. They bother barbarian visitors with their screeching, but they
fawn upon Greeks with an amazing power of discrimination, as if paying
regard to the race of Diomedes. And every day they wash and purify his
temple with moistened wings and with full-throated song. This is the origin
of the story that the companions of Diomedes had been changed into the
shape of birds.
This is an abridged version of the passage as it appears in Pliny, for I
have left out a significant amount of information about the birds’ social
organization, their habitat, and even their fastidiousness about not relieving
their bowels or breaking wind within the confines of their dwelling. But
these details did not make their way into Aelian’s text, and so we have here
an opportunity to gauge how Aelian used his sources in natural history.
With the page of Juba’s text before him, Aelian appropriated only what he
thought would be of cultural value or interest. Excising the bits about the
birds living in ditches that they have dug in the earth, Aelian focuses on
the more human characteristics of the birds, in particular their fellowship
with men. One could say that what was for Juba a trivial aside (unde origo

 See Wellmann .

 The birds of Diomedes 
fabulae) becomes for Aelian the substance of his programmatic first entry
in the NA. Aelian is more interested in the anthropomorphic and fabulist
elements in his source than in the scientific. Juba is an important scholarly
character in Aelian’s collection of animal narratives, and we shall encounter
him several more times throughout this book.
What, then, of the fabula to which Juba and Aelian allude? Aelian
provides the mythological explanation for the birds’ curiously philhellenic
behavior at the end of the passage: once upon a time, after the Trojan War,
these Greek companions of Diomedes changed into birds. The story was of
course documented in Greek sources, but a Roman audience would have
been equally familiar with the story from their own literary tradition, as it
was recounted in the two central epics of the Latin canon, Vergil’s Aeneid
and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In Book  of the Aeneid, King Latinus sits in
council with the envoys whom he had dispatched to the city of Arpi to seek
military aid from the Greek Diomedes against the invading Trojans. The
envoy Venulus recounts Diomedes’ reluctance to join in the Italian war
against Aeneas: none of the Greeks had an easy time returning from the
war at Troy, and Diomedes shared their fate because of the wound that he
had inflicted upon the goddess Venus in battle. Punishment was inflicted
on his comrades, too:
nunc etiam horribili uisu portenta sequuntur
et socii amissi petierunt aethera pennis
fluminibusque uagantur aues (heu, dira meorum
supplicia!) et scopulos lacrimosis uocibus implent.
(A. .–)

Now even portents follow that are horrible to look at:

my lost comrades have taken to the sky with wings
and as birds they wander about rivers (alas, the dire punishments
of my men!) and they fill the rocks with their tearful voices.
Ovid provides a different explanation for the cause of the men’s transforma-
tion. There was in Diomedes’ army one Acmon (Anvil), a man “bitter for
his misfortunes” (cladibus asper, .), whose angry outburst, scorning the
hatred of the goddess, provokes Venus’ anger even more. Acmon’s speech
is applauded by few of Diomedes’ men, and most, according to Diomedes,
censure him for his impiety. But when Acmon wanted to respond,

 Lyc. –; Str. ...–; Ant.Lib. .–; Antig. Mir. . See Papathomopoulos :  n. 
and Forbes Irving : –.
 On the role of Diomedes in Vergil and Ovid, see Papaioannou  and , and Fletcher .
See also Rink : –.
 The Hellenized Roman
vox pariter vocisque via est tenuata, comaeque
in plumas abeunt, plumis nova colla teguntur
pectoraque et tergum, maiores bracchia pennas
accipiunt, cubitique leves sinuantur in alas;
magna pedis digitos pars occupat, oraque cornu
indurata rigent finemque in acumine ponunt.
(Met. .–)

his voice and his throat became narrow, and his hair
changes into feathers, and his new neck is covered with feathers,
as are his chest and back, and his arms receive bigger feathers,
and his elbows are bent into light wings;
the majority of his foot expands to take over the space between
his toes, and his mouth,
hardened by a beak, becomes stiff and tapers to a point.
Vergil (following Lycophron) explains that the transformation of
Diomedes’ men into birds was linked to Diomedes’ own transgression
against Venus’ “heavenly body” (caelestia corpora), but in Ovid’s account
the story is given a more political edge: we are invited to imagine Diomedes’
army as a site of debate, an assembly or, if you will, a senate. From this
perspective, daring to speak out against Venus, the ancestral goddess of the
Julio-Claudian family and therefore a figure for the principate, becomes a
dangerous enterprise. It is just as dangerous for those who voice approval
for outspoken criticism of the divine authority, for Diomedes and the more
prudent part of his army watch in horror as five comrades (Lycus, Idas,
Rhexenor, Nycetus, and Abas) are also transformed into snow-white birds
just for their admiration of Acmon (Met. .–).
The complex, if not strained, relationship between the poet and the
princeps is of course a prominent theme in the work of both Vergil and
Ovid, and Aelian’s allusion to this episode activates the significance of the
theme in the NA and also reminds us of Aelian’s interest elsewhere in the
problem of political outspokenness. Later in the NA, Aelian describes
the behavior of geese that place a pebble in their beaks to prevent themselves
from honking and arousing predatory eagles; this passage becomes explicitly
political when Aelian concludes the chapter with a reference to Roman
tyranny. But the theme was not only of interest to Aelian in the NA. In
the VH, he tells the story of a tyrant of Troezen who imposes a mandatory
silence on his people because of his own fears about conspiracies and a plot
against his life. The people find other ways of communicating by means of

 NA ., see Chapter .

 The birds of Diomedes 
facial expressions and gestures, but the situation finally drives the people
to communicating with tears alone, until at last the tyrant is killed by an
angry mob. Relevant to this theme, too, is the anecdote about Aelian’s
diatribe against Elagabalus, indicating that when it came to speaking out
against the principate Aelian thought a self-imposed silence was often the
most prudent option. The accounts by Vergil and Ovid, which would
certainly have been known to Aelian’s educated Roman readers, reveal
that even the programmatic first chapter on the birds of Diomedes is
relevant to the recurring theme of Aelian’s fraught relationship to Roman
imperial power. Schettino has argued that Aelian was complicit with, if not
an active supporter of the political and cultural program of the emperor
Caracalla. My own reading of the NA, however, reveals that Aelian’s
critical stance toward Roman society generally should be understood to
extend also to the Severan emperors, Caracalla included. Aelian could not,
of course, be outspoken in his criticism of the emperors, but he could
voice criticisms under the subterfuge of sophistic learning, and one way to
suggest the dangers of speaking out is by invoking the myth of the birds
of Diomedes, whose becoming animal was the direct result of challenging
divine authority.
Aelian is not, as I hope has become clear, merely interested in conveying
a bit of knowledge about a curious species of Hellenophile bird off the
coast of southern Italy. He is also interested in the politics of literature and
in expressing the transcendent power of a Hellenic identity within Roman
imperial culture. Miraculously, according to Aelian’s story, becoming ani-
mal does not mean that one must cease to be Greek. The story of the birds
of Diomedes highlights an essential quality of Hellenism, that regardless
of one’s physical appearance, one’s central Greek core is unchangeable.
One may look like an animal, but “by some divine gift” (θείᾳ τινὶ δωρεᾷ)
Hellenism will out. Aelian is consequently concerned not only with the
cultural value of Hellenism, but also with the anxieties attendant upon
being labeled a barbarian. Though the story of the birds of Diomedes
gets to the very heart of Rome’s connection with the Greek past, Aelian
emphasizes not continuity but rupture. On this island off the Italian coast,
Greeks are described as foreigners (ἐὰν δὲ ῞Ελλην κατάρῃ ξένος); we are
therefore in the land of Western barbarians, Aelian’s covert allusion to
Romans. And yet it is with Greek foreigners, not with barbarian Romans,
that these animals cultivate bonds of intimacy and civility, transcending

 VH .. See Spina .  Philostr. VS . See Prandi : .
 Schettino : –.  Cf. Schöner : –.  See also NA . and ..
 The Hellenized Roman
the boundaries between species to share in the Greek cultural experience
of xenia.
By the third century, however, Hellenism was no longer just an ethnic-
ity; it had become an integral part of the cultural apparatus of the Roman
Empire. Whether one was in Italy, Africa, or Asia Minor, being an edu-
cated Roman entailed at least a measure of Hellenic learning, and for the
cultured elite of the empire, a stylized Hellenic persona was mandatory.
And yet, implying that Greek identity was an essential quality, as Aelian
does in the story of the birds of Diomedes, cannot help but also, para-
doxically, show up the constructed, artificial quality of Hellenism in the
Imperial period. Even though Aelian could speak Greek as well as anyone
from the Attic heartland, he was not born a “Classical Greek”; he made
himself into one. Regardless of whether Aelian was a former slave born
to Greek parents or whether he was descended from a Roman family,
the fact remains that by the third century ce no one had been born a
“Classical Greek” for six hundred years, and Aelian himself is aware of this
chronological gulf separating him from the Classical world.
As a native of Italy who wrote in Greek, Aelian was not alone in the
literary landscape of the second and third centuries. Two other person-
alities stand out. The emperor Marcus Aurelius is, of course, the most
famous Roman known for his literary expression in Greek. Though he cor-
responded with his teacher Fronto in Latin, his Meditations in Greek have
become a central text of Stoic philosophy. Another native of Italy who wrote
in Greek was Aspasius of Ravenna, the subject of a biographical notice in
Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists. It is almost certain that Aelian knew
Aspasius personally, since both were fellow pupils of Pausanias in Rome.
Like Aelian, Aspasius strove to express himself with simplicity of style (σὺν
ἀφελείᾳ, VS ), but Aspasius’ career was decidedly more illustrious than
Aelian’s: he was appointed Imperial Secretary under Caracalla or Alexan-
der Severus and even held the chair of rhetoric at Rome. Also like Aelian,
Aspasius attracted the criticism of Philostratus the Lemnian, who wrote a
treatise entitled How One Should Write Letters (πῶς χρὴ ἐπιστέλλειν) tar-
geting Aspasius’ activity as Imperial Secretary. These details offer a glimpse
of a competitive literary scene in which the practitioners of Greek rhetoric
in Italy strove to make a name for themselves while surrounded by men
from the East for whom expression in Attic Greek was putatively more
“natural.”
 See inter alios Swain , Schmitz , Goldhill , Whitmarsh , and Perkins .
 See Whitmarsh : .  NA pr., lines –.
 For the letters, see Richlin .  See also Souda α , Bowie : .
 Roman stories in the NA 
So, for as much as Aelian is a Greek, he is also a Roman, as he himself will
later admit in the VH, one of the barbaroi whom the birds of Diomedes
will not go near. But the essentialism of Greek identity is a fiction that
Aelian feels the need to perpetuate, which raises the specter of anxiety that
must have haunted every practitioner of Greek paideia during the Imperial
period. If one was not born a “Classical Greek,” but rather if that was an
identity that one had to perform, then the legitimacy of that performance
was always at stake. This anxiety comes to the fore even in Aelian’s Greek
literary persona, as his emblematic opening chapter suggests. At the same
time that he asserts, “I too am a Greek,” he also quietly asks, “Am I Greek
enough?” The birds of Diomedes would be able to tell.

Roman stories in the NA

An important strategy in legitimizing his performance of paideia in the
NA is Aelian’s studied distancing of himself from Roman culture. That
is achieved most obviously in part by the avoidance of citing any Latin
sources in the NA – Roman characters appear within the pages of the
NA, but Latin writers do not. Nevertheless, Aelian’s Roman sympathies
do appear from time to time, reinforcing the idea that his Greek literary
persona was necessarily a product of his ongoing negotiation with Roman
culture and Roman identity. Consider, for example, the way in which
Aelian narrates the famous episode of the Gallic siege of the Capitoline in
 bce and the alarm sounded by the geese during the invaders’ nocturnal
ascent of the citadel. Aelian speaks of “the Romans” objectively in the third
person, nowhere self-identifying as a Roman himself. At the same time,
however, he embellishes the story with several superfluous historical and
cultural details that betray his intimacy with the material.
The piece starts off as a discussion of the relative merits of dogs and geese:
“when it comes to keeping watch, dogs are not as helpful as geese, and the
Romans found this out (καὶ τοῦτο κατεφώρασαν ῾Ρωμαῖοι)” (NA .).
He goes on to explain the historical evidence for his assertion: “The Celts,
you see, were at war with them (αὐτοῖς), and having pressed them (αὐτούς)
very strongly they were in the city itself, and indeed Rome had fallen to
them except for the Capitoline hill.” It is unlikely that Aelian is following
any single source for the narration of this famous episode from Roman

 Cf. Aristid. ., and see Saı̈d  and .

 Cf. Salih and Butler : , on normative heterosexuality as a “panicked imitation of its own
naturalized idealization.”
 The Hellenized Roman
history. It was part of Rome’s “national folklore” and would therefore
have been one of the earliest stories that Aelian learned about Rome’s
illustrious past, much as an American child might learn of the legendary
midnight ride of Paul Revere. But Aelian distances himself as narrator from
any connection to the story. The Romans are “they” or “them,” never “us”
or “our people,” and Rome is certainly not “our city.” Compare Varro’s
more overtly patriotic account of the episode from a fragment of his book
On the Life of the Roman People: “ . . . that our army (noster exercitus) was
routed in such a way that the Gauls gained possession of Rome except for
the Capitolium” (fr.  Riposati). No such alignment or identification with
Rome is to be found in Aelian’s account.
Other narrative gestures, though, betray Aelian’s intimate familiarity
with this most Roman of stories. Marcus Manlius’ role in the events is an
important part of the tradition, but he is hardly Aelian’s focus. Aelian is,
remember, ostensibly interested in dogs and geese. What does it matter
then that “this man, you know (τοι), also wreathed his son with a crown
for his military excellence, but then killed him because he deserted his
post”? This mini-narrative about Manlius and his son is superfluous to the
historical evidence that geese are better at keeping watch than dogs. And the
offhand, almost gossipy way in which Aelian launches into the digression
(“this man, you know . . . ”) is the mark of a storyteller familiar with and
tempted to indulge in the expansive network of interrelated stories that
make up Rome’s legendary past.
When the Gauls attack in the middle of the night from the most unlikely
approach to the Capitoline, they throw food to the dogs to keep them quiet.
But it is a peculiarity of geese, says Aelian, to cackle when food is thrown
at them, and so, thanks to the cackling of the geese, Manlius and the other
Romans are roused from their slumber and are able to repel the Gauls who
are attacking from the steep slopes. Aelian concludes the narrative with a
bit of aetiology: “With regards to this, you know (τοι), dogs pay the price
among the Romans to this day (καὶ νῦν) every year for the memory of
their ancient betrayal, but the goose is honored on appointed days, and
he appears in public in a litter with great pomp and circumstance.” The
goose parade must have been quite a sight, and it was clearly a ritual that
Aelian himself had witnessed. And yet Aelian stops short of the kind of
detailed personal commentary on the spectacle that we might expect from
a paradoxographer interested in the cultural significance of animals. A

 Horsfall : .

 Cf. Plin. Nat. ., who stays on topic in his succinct account of the same story.
 Roman stories in the NA 
missed opportunity, to say the least. Again, one wonders whether Aelian’s
reticence to speak further about this peculiar Roman tradition has anything
to do with his sensitivity about seeming “too Roman.”
In other chapters, there is a noticeable distancing from Roman political
authority as well, a theme merely alluded to by the story of the birds
of Diomedes, as I argued above. Augustus himself appears twice in the
NA, and both times with reference to the asp-inflicted death of Cleopatra.
When we first encounter him, he is approaching, a threatening figure on the
horizon (τοῦ Σεβαστοῦ προσιόντος), as Cleopatra seeks a means of death
that will minimize her suffering (NA .). The tone is not one of panic,
and Cleopatra is hardly a coward. On the contrary, the setting is sympotic
(ἐν τοῖς συμποσίοις) and her inquiry into the ideal means of suicide is
conceived in philosophical terms. Aelian even describes Cleopatra’s choice
in the solemn language of epic: death from the bite of the asp is, “so that
I might speak Homerically, gentle (ἀβληχρόν).” The phrase is a studied
allusion to Book  of the Odyssey, where Teiresias in the underworld
informs Odysseus that his own death will be gentle (θάνατος . . . ἀβληχρός,
.–) and that it will come peacefully in comfortable old age, when he
is surrounded by his blessed people. Homer was for Aelian the master poet
and an authority for knowledge in all spheres of human and animal life, and
so the allusion to the Odyssey here, more than merely ornamental, reinforces
the nobility of Cleopatra’s death. Aelian later resumes the narrative in the
same book of the NA, in a further discourse on the bite of the asp:
ἔνθεν τοι καὶ τῆς Κλεοπάτρας ὁ θάνατος τοῖς ἀμφὶ τὸν Σεβαστὸν οὐ πάνυ
τι ῥᾳδίως ἐγνώσθη ἀλλὰ ὀψέ, δύο κεντημάτων καὶ μάλα γε δυσθεάτων καὶ
δυσθηράτων ὀφθέντων, δι’ ὧν ἐφωράθη τὸ τοῦ θανάτου αἴνιγμα. ἄλλως
τε καὶ ἴχνη τοῦ τῆς ἀσπίδος σύρματος ἐφάνη, πρόδηλα τοῖς ἔχουσι τῆς
τούτων κινήσεως τῶν ζῴων τὴν ἱστορίαν ὄντα. (NA .)
How Cleopatra died was learned by Augustus’ men not at all easily, but after
a long time, when two punctures that were very hard to notice and discover
were seen; that was how the riddle of her death was discovered. Above all,
the traces of the asp’s trailing motion were evident, which are evident to
those who have the history/inquiry of the movement of these creatures.
The reader’s sympathies are once again aligned with the Egyptian queen
for the riddling manner of her death, presenting as it does an interpretative
 Cf. also the bare notice about the Roman victory over Pyrrhos, NA .; see Nenci .
 The numerous references to Homer in the NA have been catalogued and analyzed by Kindstrand
. For the fundamental significance of Homer for Greek paideia and literature of the Roman
Imperial period, see Kim .
 Schettino :  also sees an intentional connection between NA . and ..
 The Hellenized Roman
challenge for Augustus’ bumbling ministers. And when the manner of
Cleopatra’s death is finally discovered, it is not because of the intellect of
Rome’s newest military conqueror. Such sophisticated hermeneutics are,
rather, the province of those who write and read animal histories, the
keepers of specialized knowledge. Duane Roller notes that Augustus would
soon appropriate Hellenistic scholarship in the manipulation of Roman
antiquarianism: “The newness of Rome to the Greeks was matched by the
self-conception of the Augustan era . . . Thus the Greek scholars became
the implementation of the Roman, especially Augustan, view of early Rome
and its continuity with the present.” In the passage quoted above, Aelian
shows us the beginnings of the process identified by Roller: if Cleopatra’s
death was a riddling expression of foreign sophistication and learning,
Augustus will rely on his cadre of intellectuals to meet the challenge. The
fact remains, however, that the source of such power resides not with
the emperor himself, but with the scholars on whom he must rely for the
reinforcement of his imperial vision.
Elsewhere in Aelian’s reminiscences of the Roman civil wars, we see
a similar alignment of sympathies with the victims rather than with the
triumphal victors. In a touching excursus about how dolphins are mindful
of their dead, Aelian notes as a vivid negative example that,
καὶ τὸν ῾Ρωμαῖον Πομπήιον τὸν Μέγαν ἐπίκλην ἀποκτείναντες Αἰγύπ
τιοι τοσαῦτα ἐργασάμενον καὶ νίκας νικήσαντα ἄγαν σεμνὰς καὶ θρι
αμβεύσαντα τρὶς καὶ τὸν τοῦ φονέως πατέρα σώσαντα καὶ εἰς τὴν Αἰγυπ
τίων βασιλείαν ἐπαναγαγόντα εἴασαν ἐρριμμένον, ἄμοιρον τῆς κεφαλῆς,
πλησίον τῆς θαλάσσης καὶ ἐκεῖνον, ὡς ὑμᾶς πολλάκις ἐῶσι. (NA .,
p. , lines –)
The Egyptians, when they killed the Roman Pompey, called The Great,
who had achieved so much and been victorious in victories worthy of
much respect and who triumphed three times and who saved the life of his
murderer’s father and had restored him to the rule of the Egyptians – they
left him prostrate, deprived of his head, beside the sea, even him, as they
often leave you [the dolphin].
Pompey receives here exactly the kind of effusive praise that is denied
Augustus – and Julius Caesar, it should be noted, receives no notice at all
in the pages of the NA. Aelian is, as this example makes clear, willing to
recognize and honor the achievements of Rome’s great men of the past, but
such eulogies are exceedingly rare in the NA, and it is significant that the
rhetorical function of this particular eulogy is not to praise Pompey per se,

 Cf. D.C. . and Schettino : –.  Roller : .  Cf. Suet. Aug. ..–.
 Roman stories in the NA 
but to emphasize the Egyptians’ degradation of Pompey’s corpse. Such
are the symptoms of Roman civil war, and the image of the great Roman
decapitated recurs again in the NA, in reference to the fallen emperor
Galba, whose head could not be cut off by his enemies until they had
killed the dog who stood guard beside him. Aelian notes that this occurred
in “one of the civil wars in Rome” (ἔν τινι τῶν ἐμφύλων πολέμων ἐν τῇ
῾Ρώμῃ, .). When Pompey was felled and left unburied by the Egyptians,
that could be understood as the unthinking crime of a barbarian people,
but in the short narrative about the death of Galba the Romans are revealed
to be just as barbarous, if not worse, for here the crime is perpetrated by
Romans against a fellow Roman.
Aelian also seems to have had little regard for the Roman senate. Intro-
ducing a chapter on the mating habits of the land tortoise, Aelian indicates
that his source is Demostratos, who he claims was a member of the Roman
senate (τῶν ἐκ τῆς ῾Ρωμαίων βουλῆς γενόμενος, NA .). Aelian then
adds parenthetically, “not at all I suppose for this reason is he a sufficient
witness” (οὔ τί που διὰ τοῦτο ἤδη τεκμηριῶσαι ἱκανός), but because of
his intellectual achievements in natural science and philosophy and for the
eloquence with which he expressed his knowledge. Consistent with his
self-portrait in the preface and epilogue, where Aelian redefines nobility and
virtue as literary achievement, these remarks convey the idea that political
achievement generally and membership of the Roman senate specifically
are in and of themselves irrelevant. Aelian’s sentiment here may be inter-
preted as a sign of his anger at the fact that the appointment of men from
the East to senatorial rank became increasingly indiscriminate during his
own lifetime. Though his discontent cannot have been motivated by
ethnic or racial prejudice against Greeks per se, he surely lamented the fact
that advancement to the senate was not based on merit, talent, and the
 Cf. Schettino : –.  Cf. Suet. Gal. ..–; see Raoss .
 There is a brief biographical notice at Souda δ , and Pliny lists a Demostratos as one of his foreign
sources (externis, Nat. .). Wellmann :  places Aelian’s Demostratos no later than the
reign of Augustus on the tenuous basis that the Augustan writer Dioscorides alludes to a tradition
about the urine of the lynx (lungourion, Dsc. . Wellmann), a tradition with which Pliny’s
Demostratos was also familiar (cf. Plin. Nat. .). But Dioscorides does not cite Demostratos
by name and it seems reasonable to assume that the story about lungourion was a commonplace
among writers of natural history. Furthermore, if Aelian is right that Demostratos was a member
of the senate, one would not have found a Greek senator in the Rome of Augustus, much less
during the Republic. There is epigraphical evidence for three Athenian Demostratoi during the
reign of the Julio-Claudians; all were prominent figures and held a number of public offices, but
none were senators (Schmalz : –). Aelian’s Demostratos must be different than the one
mentioned by Pliny. Keydell :  n.  dates Aelian’s Demostratos to the late second century
ce and supposes on the basis of Ael. NA . that Aelian knew him personally.
 Walton : ; see also Halfmann  and .
 The Hellenized Roman
promise that one would be a competent administrator. It is remarkable
that Demostratos receives Aelian’s praise in spite of the fact that he was a
Roman senator.
In a short passage elsewhere, Aelian even places an etiology of the Roman
fasces, the very symbol of Roman political and imperial power, within a
religious discourse that transcends Rome itself. The effect is twofold. The
narrative grants a privileged central position to the Palatine hill, where,
inspired by the augury of twelve vultures, Romulus once “established the
custom for rods equal in number to the birds seen at that time to proceed
before Roman rulers” (NA .). The narrative memorializes the birth
of the quintessential paraphernalia of Roman imperial power, for the fasces
were a potent visual reminder of Roman authority throughout the world.
On the other hand, demonstrating the sacred role of the vulture in religious
practices stretching from Spain to Egypt, the narrative also connects Rome
to the world by means other than imperial: Romulus’ augury is in Aelian’s
vision but one instance of a pervasive, transcultural religious mentality.
Being Roman in this way is not to enact a position of cultural superiority,
but to find alternative avenues by which to identify one’s relationship with
the world at large. Throughout the NA, Aelian figures Roman traditions
and Roman identity within an emergent imperial culture that absorbs and
breaks down the barriers between ethnicities.
But Aelian’s view of a universalizing empire demanded the elimina-
tion of Rome’s more barbaric qualities. The concern lingered that, for
all the benefits of empire, Rome would always be culturally inferior and
unsophisticated. This anxiety is expressed most clearly, and not without
humor, in Aelian’s discourse on the peacock, “the most beautiful of birds”
(NA .). The reference to Rome comes only at the end of the chapter,
but the entirety of the passage must be considered in detail. Aware of its
own beauty, the peacock “makes its feathers stand up in order and all in
a row, and it resembles a flowering meadow or a painting with the varied
embellishment of polychromatic paint, and a sweaty job awaits painters
to represent what is characteristic of its nature” (τὰ πτερὰ ἐν κόσμῳ καὶ
κατὰ στοῖχον ὀρθοῖ, καὶ ἔοικεν ἀνθηρῷ λειμῶνι ἢ γραφῇ πεποικιλμένῃ
πολυχροίᾳ τῇ τῶν φαρμάκων, καὶ ἱδρὼς πρόκειται ζωγράφοις εἰκάσαι
τῆς φύσεως τὸ ἴδιον, p. , lines –). The peacock, representing the

 Cf. Liv. ..–.

 Cf. Schettino, who sees a contemporary interest in connecting Rome with Egypt as the very “humus
da cui nasce il de natura animalium” (: ). On the complex relationship between local
knowledge and imperial power in “compilatory” literature of the period, see König & Whitmarsh
: –.
 Roman stories in the NA 
height of beauty and sophistication, recalls Aelian’s description of the NA
itself: “a meadow or garland in bloom with polychromatic variety, the
many animals acting like flower-bearers” (οἱονεὶ λειμῶνά τινα ἢ στέφανον
ὡραῖον ἐκ τῆς πολυχροίας, ὡς ἀνθεσφόρων τῶν ζῴων τῶν πολλῶν, ep.,
p. , lines –). The bird’s plumage surpasses “the garments of the
Medes and the embroideries of the Persians” (τὴν τῶν Μήδων ἐσθῆτα καὶ
τὰ Περσῶν ποικίλματα, NA ., p. , lines –). Aelian reports that
the bird was brought to the Greek world from barbarian lands, and that
it was fetishized as a specimen of exotic beauty: “and indeed in Athens
on the first of each month they used to receive both men and women
for the examination of the birds, and they used to hold that viewing as a
source of revenue” (καὶ ᾿Αθήνησί γε ταῖς νουμηνίαις ἐδέχοντο καὶ ἄνδρας
καὶ γυναῖκας ἐπὶ τὴν ἱστορίαν αὐτῶν, καὶ τὴν θέαν πρόσοδον εἶχον,
p. , lines –). The Athenian examination (ἱστορία) of the peacock rep-
resents a Classical exemplum in miniature of what Aelian has attempted
to do on a grand literary scale in the NA. We may think of the display of
the peacock in Athens as the beginning of its assimilation to the world of
culture, learning, and sophistication. In Athens the peacock becomes more
than just an exotic bird; it becomes a powerful symbol of nature’s art.
The conclusion of the passage is pregnant with meaning: “The Roman
Hortensius is judged to be the first to have sacrificed a peacock for a
banquet. But Alexander the Macedonian was astounded when he saw
these birds in India, and in awe of their beauty he threatened with the most
severe threats anyone who sacrificed a peacock” (῾Ορτήνσιος δὲ ὁ ῾Ρωμαῖος
καταθύσας ἐπὶ δείπνῳ ταὼν πρῶτος ἐκρίθη. ᾿Αλέξανδρος δὲ ὁ Μακεδὼν
ἐν ᾿Ινδοῖς ἰδὼν τούσδε τοὺς ὄρνιθας ἐξεπλάγη, καὶ τοῦ κάλλους θαυμάσας
ἠπείλησε τῷ καταθύσαντι ταὼν ἀπειλὰς βαρυτάτας, NA ., p. , lines
–). Hortensius’ name was a byword in Rome for abandoned, insatiate
living, and here he represents Rome generally. The whole of the passage
appeals to cultural types: Medes and Persians are known for their finery,
Athenians for their inquisitiveness, India for its natural beauty. Within
this scheme, Aelian pessimistically figures Rome as morally bankrupt and
brutish beneath its pretensions to refinement. For the Roman, the peacock
is not something to be appreciated for the pleasure it offers the eye or the
intellect, but something to satisfy a gourmand’s hungry stomach. Finally,
in citing Alexander’s disapproval of sacrificing peacocks, we may see Aelian
questioning the degree to which Rome will ever participate in the ideal
vision of a humanistic, international Hellenism.

 Cf. NA ..
 The Hellenized Roman

An animal spectacle
Discussion of the impact of Roman culture on Aelian’s NA leads inevitably
to Rome’s ongoing fascination with the arena and its popular animal
entertainments. In his account of the reign of Commodus, the historian
Herodian indicates that part of the spectacle was not just the violence
between animals and emperor during the staged venatio, or “hunt,” but
the very novelty of the species introduced to the gaze of the Roman public.
Elevated upon a terrace specially constructed in the arena (“He provided
a display of marksmanship rather than of courage”), the emperor himself
slew deer, gazelles, a variety of horned animals (except bulls), lions, and
leopards:
τὰ δὲ πανταχόθεν ζῷα ἠθροίζετο αὐτῷ. τότε γοῦν εἴδομεν ὅσα ἐν γραφαῖς
ἐθαυμάζομεν· ἀπό τε γὰρ ᾿Ινδῶν καὶ Αἰθιόπων, εἴ τι πρότερον ἄγνωστον
ἦν, μεσημβρίας τε καὶ τῆς ἀρκτῴας γῆς ζῷα πάντα φονεύων ῾Ρωμαίοις
ἔδειξε. (Hdn. ..–)
Creatures from all over were collected for him. It was then that we saw
things that we used to wonder at in paintings. For from the Indians and
the Ethiopians, if there was anything that was previously unknown, all the
creatures of the earth, from the south and the north, he displayed to the
Romans while slaying them.
Herodian’s description captures the most prominent themes operating in
Aelian’s zoography. First, the scene illustrates empire’s ability to satisfy
exotic fantasies – the fantasies not just of a megalomaniacal emperor, but
of the adoring crowds as well. Concomitant with the fulfillment of such
imperial fantasies, however, is the uncertain ontological status of the new
reality. As they gaze upon Commodus’ paradoxical domestication of the
safari, the Roman people are given the opportunity to see for themselves
sights that they had previously seen only in paintings (ἐν γραφαῖς). Expe-
riencing an awesome reality heretofore mediated by art, Herodian empha-
sizes his self-conscious awareness of just how contrived this new reality is.
Suddenly (τότε γοῦν), life itself is like a painting.
Second, the scene is one of Herodian’s many commentaries on the
tyrannical violence perpetrated by the parade of vicious emperors after
Marcus Aurelius. The image of Commodus hurling his javelins at the ani-
mals confined in the arena below him is the real-life posture memorialized
by the emperor himself in the statue that he erected opposite the sen-
ate house. Senators exiting their council chambers would be confronted
 See Auguet : –, Wiedemann : –, Coleman : lxxii, Gilhus : –.
 An animal spectacle 
with a colossal image of Commodus the hunter, “ready to shoot with his
bow, for indeed he wished even images of him to inspire fear” (τόξον
διηγκυλημένον· ἐβούλετο γὰρ δὴ καὶ τὰς εἰκόνας αὑτῷ φόβον ἀπειλεῖν,
Hdn. ..). Herodian’s juxtaposition of the description of the statue with
the scene of Commodus’ staged hunt in the arena suggests a symbolic asso-
ciation. Members of the senatorial class sitting in the arena would perhaps
sympathize with Commodus’ powerless animal victims. After Commodus’
death in , his threatening statue opposite the senate house was replaced
with a statue of Freedom (᾿Ελευθερίας εἰκόνα, ..).
It has already been established that Aelian, who came of age during
the reign of Commodus, possessed a keen interest in art and nature and
in the pathological violence of his world. But I draw attention to Hero-
dian’s account of Commodus’ animal spectacles to illustrate how the arena,
both as a physical space and in the imagination, was an important locus
where Roman cultural identity was continually forged and redefined. It
was a space where specimens of imperial exotica could be contained and
absorbed, made Roman, and domesticated before the gaze of the public.
And it was also a place of contact between various strata of society, where
emperor, senate, masses, and resident and visiting foreigners came together.
As such, in the arena, politics and society were themselves on display, and
animals – both the real and the metaphorical – were, as objects of display
in the arena, integral elements in the vocabulary of cultural and social
discourse.
Aelian’s NA represents therefore a transformation of the arena. In Aelian’s
conceptualization, animals are still objects for display, but not for the
gruesome spectacle of their destruction. Blood is exchanged for scholarly
learning; the violence and death of the venatio are traded for an appreciation
of our common humanity with animals and, not least of all, an appreciation
of the sophistic learning of the author. Aelian’s position opposes that of,
for example, Martial’s Liber spectaculorum, which, fusing a celebration of
the spectacles in the amphitheatre with imperial panegyric, consolidated
the status quo of Roman popular culture with Roman imperial power.
Two narratives in the NA that directly treat Roman fascination with animal
spectacles reinforce the notion of Aelian’s figurative transformation of the
Roman arena. One is Aelian’s version of the story of Androkles and the
lion (NA .), which I discuss in Chapter , in a more detailed treatment
of Aelian’s relationship with the figure of the emperor. The other animal
spectacle, however, is that of the trained elephants that performed during

 See Gunderson .  See Coleman : lxxix–lxxxi.

 The Hellenized Roman
the shows produced by Germanicus Caesar, the nephew and adopted son
of Tiberius (NA .). On the surface it is a charming anecdote, but in fact
it addresses in compelling terms the complexity of the relationship between
Aelian’s Greek and Roman identities.
Pliny the Elder informs us that, “in Germanicus Caesar’s gladiatorial
show [elephants] produced even some artless movements in the manner of
dancers” (Germanici Caesaris munere gladiatorio quosdam etiam inconditos
meatus edidere saltantium modo, Plin. Nat. .). Aelian’s account of the
same performance is markedly different. What Pliny essentially tossed aside
as unremarkable and worth only one sentence, Aelian expands into an
elaborate narrative that spans several pages. Pliny disparaged the elephants’
movements as artless (inconditos), but Aelian speaks instead “about their
sense of beauty and art (εὐμουσίας), their ready obedience (εὐπαθείας), and
the facility (εὐκολίας) with which they learn things that are difficult even for
a human to learn” (NA ., p. , lines –). Moreover, “when the elephant
has learned these things, it knows them, and it is both precise (ἀκριβοῖ)
and does not make a mistake (οὐ σφάλλεται)” (–). Aelian claims a lot for
these performing elephants, and he is aware that his narrative approaches
the unbelievable:
εἰ μὲν οὖν ἔμελλον τὴν ἐν ᾿Ινδοῖς αὐτῶν εὐπείθειαν καὶ εὐμάθειαν ἢ τὴν
ἐν Αἰθιοπίᾳ ἢ τὴν ἐν Λιβύῃ γράφειν, ἴσως ἄν τῳ καὶ μῦθον ἐδόκουν τινὰ
συμπλάσας κομπάζειν, εἶτα ἐπὶ φήμῃ τοῦ θηρίου τῆς φύσεως καταψεύδεσ
θαι· ὅπερ ἐχρῆν δρᾶν φιλοσοφοῦντα ἄνδρα ἥκιστα καὶ ἀληθείας ἐραστὴν
διάπυρον. ἃ δὲ αὐτὸς εἶδον καὶ ἅτινα πρότερον ἐν τῇ ῾Ρώμῃ πραχθέντα
ἀνέγραψαν ἄλλοι προειλόμην εἰπεῖν . . . (NA ., p. , lines –)
If I were going to write about the ready obedience and learning [of elephants]
in India, Ethiopia, or Libya, I would perhaps seem to someone to have
fabricated a story and to be boasting, and accordingly to be speaking falsely
of the beast’s nature to benefit its reputation. But that is something that a
man doing philosophy should do least of all, as well as a red-hot lover of
truth. But what I myself have seen and the past events at Rome that others
have described – these I have chosen to tell . . .
Aelian here demonstrates a concern for the status of his authorial per-
sona. Apparently, readerly expectations dictate that animal fictions be set
in geographies that are appropriately distant in the mind: the imagination
runs rampant on the margins of the civilized world. Aelian claims, conse-
quently, that his choice to provide an account of things that happened in
Rome and even of what he himself has seen is motivated by the desire not
 Were the elephants to be killed? The evidence of Cic. Fam. .. demonstrates that violence
perpetrated against elephants in the arena could elicit not the delight, but the horror and sympathy
of the public. See Coleman : .
 An animal spectacle 
to appear to be indulging in narrative fantasies. The Roman setting lends
the story a greater ontological privilege: if these things happened in Rome
(the thinking goes), then they must be true.
At this point, Aelian begins the narrative proper:
πρῶτος θέας ἐπετέλει ῾Ρωμαίοις ὁ Γερμανικὸς ὁ Καῖσαρ· εἴη δ’ ἂν ἀδελφι
δοῦς Τιβερίου οὗτος. οὐκοῦν ἐγένοντο μὲν καὶ ἄρρενες ἐν τῇ ῾Ρώμῃ τέλειοι
πλείους καὶ θήλειαι, εἶτα ἐξ αὐτῶν ἐτέχθησαν αὐθιγενεῖς. καὶ ὅτε τὰ κῶλα
ὑπήρξαντο πήγνυσθαι, σοφὸς ἀνὴρ ὁμιλεῖν τοιούτοις θηρίοις ἐπώλευσεν
αὐτούς, δαιμονίᾳ τινὶ καὶ ἐκπληκτικῇ διδασκαλίᾳ μεταχειρισάμενος. (NA
., p. , lines –)
Germanicus Caesar was the first fully to stage shows for the Romans. This
would be Tiberius’ nephew. There were, then, in Rome some full-grown
male and female elephants; then from them were produced native-born
elephants. And when their limbs began to grow firm, a man wise in terms
of his association with such beasts broke them in, handling them with a
divinely inspired and astounding training.

The detail that the elephants were born in Rome on one level accounts for
the fact that they were able to learn the dance from a very young age. On
another level, though, it matters that these sophisticated elephants were
not imported, that they were native-born Roman elephants (αὐθιγενεῖς).
Earlier, the Roman setting was meant to lend credibility to the story; now,
the Roman birth of the elephants implicitly explains their superior apti-
tude. Later in the same narrative, Aelian declares that the elephants’ innate
talents are the “gifts of nature” (φύσεως δῶρα, p. , line ), but he also
makes it abundantly clear that the elephants are in need of a “wise man”
(σοφὸς ἀνήρ, p. , line ) to train them. This must be an intradiegetic
figure for Aelian himself, who referred to himself indirectly only a few lines
before as a φιλοσοφῶν ἀνήρ. If, then, their Roman birth did lend them
any superlative talents, if there is some “singularly striking characteristic”
(ἰδιότης καθ’ ἕκαστον ἐκπληκτική, p. , lines –) about being born on
Roman soil, then it is, paradoxically, merely something raw and uncivilized,
something that needs to be “broken in” by one competent to lend grace and
civilization. The narrative thus simultaneously problematizes both Rome’s
privileged position vis-à-vis truth and the notion of a privileged Roman
nature.
After elaborating for several pages on the elephants’ elegant movements
in the dance as well as their refinement at table during a public banquet,
Aelian corroborates the narrative with a personal anecdote:
ἐγὼ δὲ εἶδον καὶ γράμματα γράφοντας ἐπὶ πίνακος ῾Ρωμαῖα ἀστραβῶς τῇ
προβοσκίδι καὶ ἀτρέπτως· πλὴν ἐπέκειτο χεὶρ τοῦ διδάξαντος ἐς τὴν τῶν
 The Hellenized Roman
γραμμάτων παιδαγωγοῦσα περιγραφήν, ἔστε ἀπογράψαι τὸ ζῷον· τὸ
δὲ ἀτενὲς ἑώρα κάτω. πεπαιδευμένους εἶναι τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς τῷ ζῴῳ καὶ
γραμματικοὺς εἶπες ἄν. (NA ., p. , line –p. , line )
And I myself saw [elephants] even writing Roman letters upon a tablet in
a straight line with their trunk and without hesitation. The only thing was
that the hand of the one who taught it was resting upon it, guiding it,
as a teacher would instruct a student, to the shape of the letters, until the
creature had made its copy. And it was looking straight down. The creature’s
eyes had been educated to know its letters too, you might say.
The passage deftly illustrates the narrator’s sophisticated irony. Superficially
the anecdote is meant to motivate the reader’s wonder at the sagacity
of the elephant, but the narrator’s pessimism is unavoidable. Aelian at
first presents us with the miraculous image of an elephant that can write
Latin, only in the very next clause (πλήν) to reveal the artificiality of
the spectacle. Aelian’s language also conveys the shallowness of the scene:
the noun περιγραφή denotes an outline or surface appearance and in legal
contexts is a word for fraud, while the verb ἀπογράψαι denotes mere
copying. The final sentence of the entire narrative reinforces the duplicity:
it begins with a positive assertion in indirect discourse (“The creature’s eyes
had been educated to know its letters too”), but that assertion is quickly
undermined by the unreality of the verbal phrase (“you might say,” εἶπες
ἄν). Aelian shows us the hand of the trainer at work; the writing elephant
is not a wonder at all.
It is curious, too, that Aelian claims the elephant wrote Roman letters.
Comparison with a passage from Pliny is enlightening. Pliny reports that
his contemporary Gaius Licinius Mucianus, “who was three times consul,
is the authority that one of them [i.e., an elephant] also learned the shapes
of Greek letters and was accustomed to write out in the words of that lan-
guage: ‘I myself wrote these things and dedicated Celtic spoils’” (Mucianus
III consul auctor est aliquem ex iis et litterarum ductus Graecarum didi-
cisse solitumque perscribere eius linguae verbis: “Ipse ego haec scripsi et spolia
Celtica dicavi,” Plin. Nat. ..–). Aelian may have borrowed the story
of the writing elephant from Pliny, or perhaps directly from Mucianus’
own text. The proximity of the accounts of the dancing elephants and the
writing elephant in Pliny’s text (Nat. . and ., respectively) suggests
a Plinian borrowing: in Aelian’s text, the story of the writing elephant
 LSJ περιγραφή I. and V.  LSJ ἀπογράφω Ι.
 On the character of Mucianus, his prominence in Flavian politics, and his literary output, see Tac.
Hist. ., ., Rogers : –, Williamson , and Ash .
 An animal spectacle 
caps off the elaborate narrative of the elephants that performed at the
games of Germanicus, the same elephants referred to by Pliny at Nat. ..
Also, Aelian’s word for the “shape” of the letters written by the elephant
(περιγραφή) seems to be a translation of Pliny’s ductus; furthermore,
the relation of ductus to the verb ducere is evoked by Aelian’s participle
παιδαγωγοῦσα, describing the guiding hand of the elephant trainer. If,
therefore, Aelian borrowed the story of the writing elephant from Pliny, it
is interesting that he would make himself the sole authority of the anec-
dote (ἐγὼ δὲ εἶδον) and also that he would alter the language in which the
spurious elephant wrote from Greek to Latin. In so doing, Aelian impli-
cates himself in a sophisticated game of literary translation and cultural
transference: the Greek letters written by the elephant in Pliny’s Latin
prose contrast with the Roman letters written by the elephant in Aelian’s
Greek prose. The reader identifying the Plinian hypotext in Aelian’s anec-
dote experiences a momentary disorientation from the multiple linguistic
shifts.
Beneath the ludic quality of this passage, however, it is possible to read
a more serious and potentially liberating commentary on cultural iden-
tity. I indicated earlier in this chapter that in the programmatic narrative
about the birds of Diomedes (NA .) Aelian was suggesting the cul-
tural and intellectual anxiety that arises from reflecting upon the acquired
character of a classicizing Hellenic identity, whether his own or that of
any contemporary intellectual – male, female, slave, freedman, senator,
Greek, Roman, Syrian, Egyptian, or otherwise. Here, in a simultaneously
converse and parallel gesture, Aelian represents the spectacle of an ele-
phant mimicking the most refined of Roman cultural activities: writing
Latin. Putting the pen in the trunk of an elephant, even if that trunk is
guided by the hand of a learned trainer, Aelian metonymically displaces the
production of Roman letters (γράμματα ῾Ρωμαῖα) from their accustomed
agent; consequently the very notion of Romanness is called into question.
Though I would not go so far as to claim for Aelian an anachronistically
“postcolonial” attitude, the remarks of Homi Bhabha may here apply: “no
culture is full unto itself . . . not only because there are other cultures which
contradict its authority, but also because its own symbol-forming activity,
its own interpellation in the process of representation, language, significa-
tion and meaning-making, always underscores the claim to an originary,
holistic, organic identity.” Aelian’s writing elephant likewise threatens the

 Cf. OLD ductus .  Rutherford : . My emphasis.

 The Hellenized Roman
claim that Roman identity is “originary, holistic, organic.” Furthermore,
following Walter Benjamin, Bhabha emphasizes the symbolic significance
of translation, “not in a strict linguistic sense of translation, as in ‘a book
translated from French into English,’ but as a motif or trope . . . for the
activity of displacement within the linguistic sign.” There is just such a
symbolic displacement in the double translation involved in Aelian’s Greek
representation of an elephant that can write Roman letters. Aelian’s writing
elephant triggers the awareness in the viewer (ἐγὼ δὲ εἶδον) that, despite its
seeming essentialism, Romanitas too might be something taught. Roman-
ness, like Hellenism, is culturally constructed. For Aelian, identity is not
fixed at all, but is an ever-changing, shifting, and overlapping palimpsest
of personae.

Marriage and the Roman family

The ideological centrality of marriage within Roman imperial culture
begins with Augustus. Marriage and the family are and have been per-
ceived in many cultures to be essential building blocks of society, but
the ideology of marriage and family intensified with the rise of the Roman
principate. This fact is confirmed not only by Augustus’ social legislation
of – bce, the lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus and the lex Iulia de
adulteriis, but also by numerous works of art and literature, “from the
friezes of the Ara pacis to Horace’s Carmen saeculare,” which sought “to
link the success of the new regime with the traditional family structure.”
The attempts of Septimius Severus and Julia Domna to legitimize their
rule by projecting the image of a harmonious family unit that extended the
stability of the Antonines are compelling evidence for the continuity of the
Augustan emphasis on marriage and family into the third century. Cas-
sius Dio, Aelian’s contemporary, in his Roman History even has Augustus
ask, “How is it not the best thing when a wife is chaste, domestic, a house-
keeper, and a rearer of children?” (πῶς μὲν γὰρ οὐκ ἄριστον γυνὴ σώφρων
οἰκουρὸς οἰκονόμος παιδοτρόφος; D.C. ..), a sentiment echoed in the
imperial propaganda of the Severans, on public monuments like the Arch
of the Argentarii in Rome (Fig. ) or the famous family portrait on the

 Ibid.
 Hersch : –. On marriage and Roman law from the Late Republic into the Imperial period,
see Treggiari . On marriage and family in Greco-Roman philosophical thought, see Gaca :
.
 Milnor : . Cf. Suet. Aug. . and Gel. ...  Levick : –.
 Marriage and the Roman family 

Fig.  Septimius Severus, Julia Domna, and Geta (chiseled out) performing a sacrifice,
Arch of the Argentarii ( ce), Rome.

Berlin tondo. This ideology, reinforcing marriage and family as the atomic
building blocks of imperial culture, pervaded Roman life.
Elite culture had, however, developed a zone of exception to this ideol-
ogy. Drawing on the philosophical ideals of ataraxia and apatheia (“impas-
sivity”), both Roman Epicureanism and Stoicism valorized the figure of
the individual who sought complete peace and calm and did so in part
by avoiding the unnecessary troubles of life, including the personal dis-
turbances and distractions that came with marriage and the rearing of
children. According to this tradition, which is given serious consideration
by Epictetus and Seneca, the wise man who remained unmarried was a role
model. It was acknowledged as a difficult path that set oneself outside of
conventional human life. Interestingly, one who chose to separate himself
from conventional human relations in this way Epictetus characterizes as
inhuman: the skholastikos was an “animal that everyone mocks” (..
Schenkl). To become animal in this way was nevertheless perceived as a
valid life choice in Imperial Roman culture, as evidenced by the fact that
 Veyne  and Foucault : –.
 Epict. ..–, ..–, ; Sen. De matrimonio  Bickel. See Gaca : .
 The Hellenized Roman
young men were encouraged in the rhetorical exercises of their training to
develop and articulate sophisticated responses to the question “Should one
get married?” (gamêteon).
Philostratus’ remarks about Aelian’s status as a committed bachelor must
be read with this historical background in mind. It will be remembered
from Chapter  that at the conclusion of his biography Philostratus says that
Aelian died without heirs, “because he excused himself from the procreation
of children by never marrying, but this is not the time to philosophize over
whether this is a blessing or a burden” (παιδοποιίαν γὰρ παρῃτήσατο τῷ
μὴ γῆμαί ποτε. τοῦτο δὲ εἴτε εὔδαιμον εἴτε ἄθλιον οὐ τοῦ παρόντος καιροῦ
φιλοσοφῆσαι, VS ). Philostratus clearly connects Aelian’s choice not to
marry with the philosophical and rhetorical tradition outlined above, and
although Philostratus is exploiting the ambiguity inherent in that choice to
impugn Aelian’s masculinity, the humor (for Philostratus) is precisely that,
whatever the real basis for Aelian’s decision not to marry, Aelian’s potentially
dubious choice could be legitimized by the assertion (pretext?) that it was
philosophically motivated. In the absence of any explicit autobiographical
statement on Aelian’s part about his philosophically stylized bachelorhood,
one may turn to his animal narratives, and indeed several stories in the
NA give a dynamic picture of Aelian’s pessimistic thoughts on the debased
state of marriage and family in Roman culture.
The first of these stories comes after a touching description of familial
devotion among elephants in the wild. Then, as a contrast to the pietas of
elephants, Aelian writes,
ἐγὼ δὲ ᾔδειν μειράκιον ὢν ἄνθρωπον πρεσβῦτιν Λαινίλλαν ὄνομα, καὶ
ἐδείκνυτο ὑπὸ πάντων, καὶ ἐπ’ αὐτῇ μῦθος ἐλέγετο, καὶ ὅ γε μῦθος τοιόσδε
ἦν. οἱ πρεσβύτεροι πρός με ἔφασκον ἐκείνην τὴν ἄνθρωπον ἐρασθεῖσαν
οἰκέτου δριμέως αὐτῷ μὲν συγκαθεύδειν, κηλῖδα δὲ ἄρα παισὶ τοῖς ἑαυτῆς
περιάπτειν. οἳ δὲ εὐγενεῖς ἦσαν, καὶ εἰς τὴν βουλὴν τὴν ῾Ρωμαίων ἐτέλουν
ἐκ πατέρων τε καὶ τῶν ἄνω τοῦ γένους ἀρξάμενοι. οἱ τοίνυν αἰδούμενοι τῇ
μητρὶ ἤχθοντο τοιαῦτα δρώσῃ, καὶ πράως ὑπενουθέτουν, καὶ τοῦ πρατ
τομένου τὴν αἰσχύνην ἐπέλεγον ἡσυχῇ· ἣ δὲ κυμαίνουσα ἐκ τῆς ἐπιθυμίας,
καὶ τὸν ἔρωτα ἐπίπροσθεν τῶν υἱέων ποιησαμένη, καταγορεύει αὐτῶν
πρὸς τὸν ἄρχοντα, ὃς ἦν τότε, καὶ λέγει ὡς ἐπιβουλεύοιεν αὐτῷ. ὃ δὲ ἔχων
εἰς διαβολὰς τὸ οὖς ῥᾴδιον, καὶ ὑπόπτης ὢν καὶ δειλὸς (πάθη δὲ ταῦτα
ἀγεννοῦς διανοίας) ἐπίστευσε. καὶ οἳ μὲν οὐδὲν ἀδικοῦντες ἀπέθνησκον, ἣ
δὲ ἆθλον τοῦ κατειπεῖν ἠνέγκατο δούλῳ συγκαθεύδειν ἀνέδην. ὦ πατρῷοι

 Cf. D.H. Rh. ..– Usener and Radermacher; Theon Prog. .–, .– Patillon; [Ps.-]
Hermog. Prog. .– Patillon; Lib. Prog.  Foerster; Aphth. .– Patillon ; Nicol. Prog. –
Felten.
 Marriage and the Roman family 
θεοὶ καὶ ῎Αρτεμι λοχεία Εἰλείθυιαί τε θυγατέρες ῞Ηρας, τί οὖν ἂν ἔτι Μήδειαν
εἴποιμεν τὴν Κόλχιν ἢ Πρόκνην τὴν ᾿Ατθίδα, τῶν ἔναγχός τε καὶ καθ’ ἡμᾶς
παθῶν μνημονεύσαντες; (NA .)
But I myself, when I was a teenager, knew an old woman named Laenilla,
and she used to be pointed out by everybody, and a story used to be told
about her, and the story goes like this: my elders used to tell me that that
woman, having conceived an acute passion for her slave, slept with him and
put a mark of shame upon her sons. But they were noble, and belonged to
the Roman senate going back to their fathers and ancestors. These, then,
being ashamed were angry that their mother had done such things, and they
admonished her gently, and calmly they brought up the shame of what was
being done. But she, seething with desire and placing lust before her own
sons, accuses them to the magistrate in charge at that time and says that they
were plotting against him. And he, having a ready ear for slander, and being
suspicious and fearful (these are the emotions of an ignoble disposition)
believed her. They, then, who had done no wrong, perished, while she took
home the prize for her denunciation: she got to sleep with her slave scot-free.
Oh gods of our fathers and Artemis of Childbirth and Eileithuiai, daughters
of Hera, why thus would we still mention Medea of Kolchis or Attic Prokne,
when we call to mind things that have happened recently and in our own
time?
A mother’s private sexual desire, incapable of being tamed and controlled
either by legitimate marriage to her senator-husband or by appeals to
familial pietas, becomes a transgressive force, polluting the household and
even corrupting political life in Rome. Laenilla’s erôs, improperly and
obsessively directed at a mere slave, but more powerful than her motherly
love for her own children, compels her to exploit the fear and paranoia of a
weak Roman magistrate, who wrongfully convicts and executes young men
of senatorial rank. Laenilla’s wickedness surpasses even that of mythical
exemplars, a forceful indication of Aelian’s pessimism about the moral
failure of marriage and family in Rome.
The failure of Roman marriage is also the theme of Aelian’s account
of the tame eel once owned by Crassus. The eel used to recognize the
voice of its famous owner when it was summoned and even used to eat
from his hand. So thorough was Crassus’ domestication of the animal that
he adorned it with earrings and necklaces set with precious stones, as if it
were a beautiful maiden (οἷα δήπου ὡραία κόρη, NA .). When the eel
died, Crassus mourned and even provided a burial, prompting his com-
panion Domitius to remark, “You fool, you’re weeping for a dead eel!”
 Plu. Util. inimic. a, Praec. de reip. gub. a, Sollert. animal. a; Macr. ..; and Porph. Abst.
.. In Plin. Nat. ., the eel’s owner is Hortensius, not Crassus.
 The Hellenized Roman
The anecdote concludes with Crassus’ witty rejoinder: “I am weeping for
an animal, but you didn’t weep when you buried your three wives” (ἐγὼ
θηρίον . . . σὺ δὲ τρεῖς γυναῖκας θάψας οὐκ ἔκλαυσας). Despite the fact
that he had treated the eel as a human girl when it was alive, anthropomor-
phizing his pet with expensive jewelry, in this sentence Crassus concedes
to his own becoming animal, eloquently expressed in the juxtaposition
of subject and object (ἐγὼ θηρίον). Ironically, though, Crassus contrasts
his own animality with the inhumanity of Domitius, whose own wives
were so insignificant to him that he did not even mourn them when they
died.
When considered alongside Aelian’s other stories of Roman marriages,
the anecdote becomes more than just a humorous trifle. The protagonists
in the story are not anonymous individuals, but prominent Roman fig-
ures: Lucius Licinius Crassus and Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus were
co-censors in  bce and numerous authors attest to their contentious
relationship. Aelian’s inclusion of this story within his collection is a fur-
ther indication of the problematization of the ideology of marriage within
the highest levels of Roman political life.
In a later chapter, Aelian tells of an elephant that, upon catching his
master’s wife and another man in bed together, gored both adulterers with
his tusks, leaving their corpses in the polluted bed so that his master could
see their crime and know who his avenger was. “And this,” says Aelian,
“happened in India, but from there it made the journey here (δεῦρο)”
(NA .). He seems to imply that the report of the adultery and of the
Indian elephant’s punishment made it to Rome, but in the very next clause
it becomes clear that the events themselves recurred in Rome:
ἀκούω δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ Τίτου ῾Ρωμαίων βασιλεύοντος, ἀνδρὸς καλοῦ καὶ ἀγαθοῦ,
καὶ ἐν τῇ ῾Ρώμῃ ταὐτὸν γεγονέναι· προστιθέασι δὲ ὅτι ἄρα ὁ ἐνθάδε
ἐλέφας ἀπέκτεινε μὲν ἀμφοτέρους, καὶ ἐν ἱματίῳ κατεκάλυψε, καὶ ἐλθόντι
τῷ τροφεῖ ἀποβαλὼν τὸ ἱμάτιον κειμένους ἀλλήλων πλησίον ἀπέδειξε, καὶ
τὸ κέρας δέ, ᾧπερ οὖν διέπειρεν αὐτούς, καὶ τοῦτο ᾑμαγμένον ἑωρᾶτο.
(NA ., p. , lines –)
And I hear also when Titus was emperor of the Romans, a fine and noble
gentleman, that the same events also happened in Rome. And they add that
indeed the elephant here killed them both, and with a cloak he concealed
them. And when his keeper returned the elephant, casting off the cloak,
revealed them to him as they lay side by side. And the tusk with which he
had pierced them, this too was seen covered with blood.
 Cic. Brut. –; de Orat. ., , ; V. Max. ..; Plin. Nat. .–; Suet. Nero .. See Ward
: .
 Marriage and the Roman family 
Once again Aelian conceals his sources, but it is worth mentioning that
the third-person plural verb προστιθέασι (“they add”) suggests multiple
sources for this remarkable story. Regardless of whether or not the story is
true, Aelian implies that he is not the one making this up. But unlike in the
story of the Capitoline geese, where he adopted the voice of an objective
historian, Aelian is eager to associate himself explicitly with this Roman
story: his reference to Titus as that “fine and noble gentleman” (ἀνδρὸς
καλοῦ καὶ ἀγαθοῦ) is a patriotic evaluation of the emperor according to
the standards of Hellenic culture, and the adverbs δεῦρο (“hither”) and
ἐνθάδε (“here”) unambiguously situate the narrative voice within the same
geographical and cultural space in which the events of the story unfold.
Aelian plays a similar game of make-believe in the story of the elephant
spectacle in Rome (NA .), discussed above.
There is, as it were, satisfaction on the part of the narrator that the
elephant’s noble sense of right and wrong transcends geography. India is
often in the NA the site not only for zoological extremes but also for an
idealized vision of the animal world. In this story, consequently, Aelian is
excited to be able to represent his own city as sharing in that idealized vision.
Rome and the rest of the “civilized” world may teem with amoral activities
and behaviors at which Aelian time and again conveys his outrage. That
outrage boils to the surface when Aelian depicts the scene of adultery: the
bed upon which the lovers trampled and the sheets that they defiled (τῶν
στρωμάτων τῶν ὑβρισμένων καὶ τῆς εὐνῆς τῆς πεπατημένης, NA .,
p. , lines –). Aelian’s moral commentary is sophisticated, for the phrase
τῆς εὐνῆς τῆς πεπατημένης, recalling Cassandra’s vatic language from
Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (εὐνὰς ἀδελφοῦ τῶι πατοῦντι, ), assimilates
the anonymous lovers of his story with the archetypal adulterers Aegisthus
and Clytemnestra. But there is hope. Blind and impotent as we may be,
Aelian seems to say, there are at least living among us creatures able to set
things right, and to do so in spectacular fashion. Not only does the Roman
elephant serve as the righteous agent of his master, but he also has a flair for
the dramatic, transforming his triumph into a theatrical event, and writing
himself into the role of heroic avenger in this domestic tragedy.
From the image of the Roman elephant’s bloody tusk, Aelian shifts
abruptly in the following chapter to the next item in his zoological
collection: “The mantic art also is a particular characteristic of snakes”
(NA .). The setting for this story is Lavinium, a Latin town with a very
ancient connection to Rome:

 Parker : .

 The Hellenized Roman
κέκληται δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς Λατίνου θυγατρὸς Λαουινίας, ἡνίκα Λατῖνος Αἰνείᾳ
συνεμάχησε κατὰ τῶν καλουμένων ῾Ρουτουλῶν, εἶτα ἐνίκησεν αὐτούς·
ᾤκισε δὲ Αἰνείας ὁ ᾿Αγχίσου ὁ Τρὼς τὴν πόλιν τὴν προειρημένην, εἴη δ’ ἂν
τῆς ῾Ρώμης μητρομήτωρ, ὡς ἂν εἴποι τις· ἐντεῦθεν γὰρ ὁρμηθεὶς ᾿Ασκάνιος ὁ
Αἰνείου καὶ Κρεούσης τῆς Τρωάδος ᾤκισε τὴν ῎Αλβαν, ᾿Αλβανῶν δὲ ἡ ῾Ρώμη
ἄποικος. (NA ., p. , lines –)
It takes its name from Lavinia, the daughter of Latinus, from the time
when Latinus made war with Aeneas against those called Rutulians and
then conquered them. And Aeneas the Trojan, son of Anchises, colonized
the aforementioned city, and it would be Rome’s grandmother, you might
say, for when he set out from Lavinium, Ascanius, the son of Aeneas
and the Trojan woman Creusa, colonized Alba, and Rome was Alba’s
colony.
These legendary, quasi-historical details would be familiar to any Roman
youngster with some knowledge of Vergil or Livy, and possibly also to the
educated elite of the Empire who were from non-Italian cultural back-
grounds. But regardless of how well known this information may have
been, Aelian feels this historical digression is pertinent enough to the story
at hand to deserve summary. He wants his readers to be acutely aware that
what he is about to relate concerning the oracular power of the snake is
connected to Rome’s very ancient past, to a time that pre-dates Rome her-
self but when the lives of Italy’s inhabitants were already bound up with the
peoples and politics of the wider Mediterranean world – note that Aelian
twice indicates the Trojan background of Aeneas’ people, once referring to
Aeneas himself and once referring to his first wife, Creusa, who failed to
make it out of Troy alive.
We run into difficulty, though, when Aelian then describes the terrify-
ing ritual in which blindfolded girls proceed into a cave to encounter a
prophetic snake that will pass judgment on their virginity. Aelian claims
that the cave is located in Lavinium within a densely wooded grove that
is situated beside a temple of Argive Hera (ἐν τῷ Λαουινίῳ ἄλσος τιμᾶται
μέγα καὶ δασύ, καὶ ἔχει πλησίον νεὼν ῞Ηρας ᾿Αργολίδος, NA ., p. ,
lines –). But Aelian has his geography wrong. This ritual, described in
detail also by Propertius (..–), actually took place in Lanuvium (not
Lavinium), in a cave adjacent to the temple of Juno Sospita. “Old Lanu-
vium,” writes Propertius, “is the guardian of an ancient snake” (Lanuuium
annosi vetus est tutela draconis, ..), and we even have a series of coins from

 Cf. also NA ., on the founding of Patavium (Padua) by the Trojan Antenor, “amplificando il
contributo della stirpe troiana alle vicende italiche” (Schettino : ). On Aelian’s depiction of
Aeneas at VH ., see Anderson : .
 Marriage and the Roman family 
c.  bce depicting a female figure feeding a ritual meal to a giant snake,
with the face of Lanuvium’s Juno Sospita stamped on the obverse. Con-
fusion between Lavinium and Lanuvium, even among inhabitants of Italy,
was common enough in antiquity – Civita Lavinia, the medieval name of
Lanuvium, attests to the persistence of that confusion. But in Aelian’s case
it is no mere slip of the pen, for the digression on the legendary founding
of Rome’s so-called “grandmother” city makes it clear that Aelian has in
mind the town of Lavinium.
Even though Aelian probably never left Italy, we know that he at least
traveled within the Italian peninsula: at NA . he speaks of a journey
from Naples to Dikaiarkhia (Pozzuoli) when the sky rained frogs. But had
Aelian ever actually been to Lavinium or Lanuvium? The journey would
not have been a long one: Lanuvium was only about  kilometers from
both Rome and Praeneste, while Lavinium was only about  kilometers
due south of Rome, as the crow flies. Had Aelian attended the very ritual
about which he writes? If so, did he think he was in Lavinium and did
he not realize that he was actually in Lanuvium? Or did he learn of the
ritual from a literary source or from hearsay? If so, did the source(s) get the
name of the town right, and did Aelian mistakenly transpose the ritual to
Lavinium? Unfortunately we do not know the answer to these questions.
Whatever the scenario, however, we are left with the image of a scholar
who was not overly concerned with facts – fair enough. But we can look
at Aelian’s scholarly mistake more productively: in locating the archaic
ritual in Lavinium, Aelian constructs an associative, thematic relationship
between the cult practice and Rome’s legendary Trojan past.
Aelian’s description of the temple adjacent to the cave as belonging to
Argive Hera is also curious. The temple of Juno Sospita in Lanuvium was
a famous one throughout Rome’s history. Livy says that it came under
the control of the Roman pontifices at a very early period, after Rome’s
conquest of Lanuvium in  bce. Furthermore, the temple is frequently
cited for its many portents and omens throughout the third and second
centuries bce, and Juno Sospita receives sacrifices alongside Rome’s other
tutelary deities. Clearly, then, the cult, whose origins in Italy extend back
probably to the sixth century bce, was known to the Romans through the
earliest Latins, and Aelian seems to make this connection by prefacing his
account of the snake ritual with a summary of Rome’s Italian genealogy
through the family of Latinus. On the other hand, Aelian also indicates
 Douglas : , , Gordon : , and Ogden : –; on the cult sanctuaries of
Lanuvium, see Coarelli : –.
 Ibid. .  Liv. .., .., .., .., .., .., .., ...
 The Hellenized Roman
how over the years the cult had become Hellenized, for the temple adjacent
to the cave belongs, not to Juno Sospita, but to Argive Hera. Perhaps Aelian
is implying the greater Italian antiquity of the ritual of the snake and the
virgins in the cave, which we can only assume was also associated with the
cult of Hera/Juno on the adjacent hillside. Douglas notes that, “The two
rites remained distinct and incongruous,” and one senses that incongruity
in Aelian’s somewhat jumbled account.
Nevertheless, as Aelian struggles to harmonize Roman and Greek culture
in this mini-dissertation on Roman legend and religion, the imagery and
themes at play in NA . connect this passage with the preceding passage
on the elephant that avenged his cuckolded Roman master. An integral
part of the cult of Hera at Argos and presumably also at Lanuvium was
the hieros gamos, commemorating Hera’s holy marriage to Zeus. In this
ritual the image of the goddess was carried in procession in a cart drawn
by white oxen, while hymns were sung to the accompaniment of pipes.
The festival also included games and dancing in honor of the goddess.
Hera’s temple at Argos also evoked the goddess’ marriage to Zeus visually,
as Pausanias makes clear. Hera’s couch (κλίνη τῆς ῞Ηρας, Paus. ..) was
displayed prominently in the front chamber of the temple, and the image
of the cuckoo that sat atop the scepter of Hera’s cult statue symbolized the
myth that, when Zeus “fell in love with the virgin Hera (παρθένου τῆς
῞Ηρας), he changed himself into this bird, but that she chased him like a
pet” (..).
Following Aelian’s reference to Argive Hera, we may read the description
of the ritual of the virgins and the snake in the cave alongside the tradition
of the hieros gamos. I do not suggest that the ritual was in reality associated
with the celebration of the hieros gamos; we have already seen, though, that
Aelian is not as concerned with facts and reality as perhaps he could be.
My point, rather, is that there is a strong thematic relationship between
the story of the elephant that was indignant at his mistress’ infidelity, the
story of Aeneas’ founding of Lavinium, the ritual of the virgins in the
cave, and its association with Argive Hera. In all of these narratives, Aelian
has marriage on the mind, both the ideal notion of marriage that was
central to Roman culture, as well as the specters of infidelities and betrayals
that plague marriage. But whereas Rome’s cultural ideology by and large
championed the ordering of Imperial society on the basis of marriage and
family life, Aelian’s narratives cast light on the unstable foundations of that
ideology.

 Douglas : ; see also Gordon : –.  Farnell : .–; Douglas : .
 Marriage and the Roman family 
Going back to Aelian’s account of the foundation of Lavinium, we are
emphatically reminded that Aeneas’ Italian future entailed a new marriage
to an Italian princess, despite that Aeneas’ heir was the product of his
marriage with the Trojan Creusa (᾿Ασκάνιος ὁ Αἰνείου καὶ Κρεούσης τῆς
Τροάδος, NA ., p. , lines –). The role of husband did not
suit Aeneas well. Leaving aside the notoriously problematic relationship
with Dido, Aeneas’ abandonment of Creusa as Troy burned around
her complicates an optimistic appreciation of the legendary hero. Vergil’s
account of this incident (A. .–) is ambiguous at best, but Ovid’s
version is typically pessimistic when he gives voice to Dido’s sufferings in
the Heroides:
omnia mentiris, neque enim tua fallere lingua
incipit a nobis, primaque plector ego.
si quaeras, ubi sit formosi mater Iuli –
occidit a duro sola relicta viro!
(Ov. Ep. .–)

Everything you say is a lie, and your tricky tongue didn’t begin with me, nor
am I the first to suffer. Where, you ask, is the mother of handsome Iulus?
Dead, left behind all alone by her hard-hearted husband.
But the husband is not the only one at fault in Aelian’s subtle commentary
on Roman marriage, for stories like that of the elephant trainer’s unfaithful
wife also provoke suspicions about wifely fidelity. In an atmosphere fraught
with such erotic anxiety, how could a Roman man ever be sure that his wife
was a virgin on their wedding night? If a man cannot recognize a virgin
just by looking, there is at least one snake that can.
At this point Aelian’s description of the ritual should be considered in
detail:
ἐν δὲ τῷ ἄλσει φωλεός ἐστι μέγας καὶ βαθύς, καὶ ἔστι κοίτη δράκον
τος. παρθένοι τε ἱεραὶ νενομισμέναις ἡμέραις παρίασιν ἐς τὸ ἄλσος ἐν
τοῖν χεροῖν φέρουσαι μάζαν καὶ τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς τελαμῶσι κατειλημμέναι·
ἄγει δὲ αὐτὰς εὐθύωρον ἐπὶ τὴν κοίτην τοῦ δράκοντος πνεῦμα θεῖον, καὶ
ἀπταίστως προΐασι βάδην καὶ ἡσυχῆ, ὥσπερ οὖν ἀκαλύπτοις ὁρῶσαι
τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς. καὶ ἐὰν μὲν παρθένοι ὦσι, προσίεται τὰς τροφὰς ἁγνὰς ὁ
δράκων καὶ πρεπούσας ζῴῳ θεοφιλεῖ· εἰ δὲ μή, ἄπαστοι μένουσι, προει
δότος αὐτοῦ τὴν φθορὰν καὶ μεμαντευμένου. μύρμηκες δὲ τὴν μάζαν τὴν
τῆς διακορηθείσης εἰς μικρὰ καταθρύψαντες, ὡς ἂν εὔφορα αὐτοῖς εἴη, εἶτα
 nec coniugis umquam | praetendi taedas aut haec in foedera veni, Verg. A. .–.
 See Perkell  and Hughes .
 On the test of virginity, see Sissa ; Brethes : – connects this passage with the tests
of virginity in Achilles Tatius’ Leukippe and Kleitophon.
 The Hellenized Roman
ἐκφέρουσιν ἔξω τοῦ ἄλσους, καθαίροντες τὸν τόπον. γνωρίζεταί τε ὑπὸ
τῶν ἐπιχωρίων τὸ πραχθέν, καὶ αἱ παρελθοῦσαι ἐλέγχονται, καὶ ἥ γε τὴν
παρθενίαν αἰσχύνασα ταῖς ἐκ τοῦ νόμου κολάζεται τιμωρίαις. μαντικὴν
μὲν δὴ δρακόντων ἂν ἀποφήναιμι τὸν τρόπον τοῦτον. (NA ., p. ,
line –p. , line )
And in the grove there is a large, deep lair, and it is the bedding place of
a serpent. And sacred virgins on days established by custom come to the
grove, carrying barley cake in their two hands, with their eyes covered with
linen blindfolds, and a holy spirit leads them straight into the cave of the
serpent, and without stumbling they go forward step by step and peacefully,
as if seeing with uncovered eyes. And if they are virgins, the serpent accepts
the food as being pure and proper for a creature beloved of god. But if
they are not virgins, they remain uneaten, since he foresaw the corruption
and divined it. And ants, when they have broken the barley cake of the
deflowered girl into tiny pieces, so it might be portable, then carry it out
of the grove, cleansing the place. And what has transpired becomes known
to the inhabitants, and the girls who came are put to the test, and she who
defiled her virginity is punished with the customary penalties. Indeed the
mantic art of serpents I would represent in this way.
This would have been a terrifying ordeal for the girls who were forced to
proceed blindfolded into the murky, primordial cave. It would have been all
the more terrifying to think that their reputation and salvation depended
upon whether the subterranean creature deemed their pathetic barley cake
appetizing or not. In Aelian’s account, the girls who come out of the ordeal
safely are unremarkable; rather, the narrator’s interests rest with the unlucky
girl whose barley cake the serpent would not touch. The story’s emphasis
on the snake’s divine ability to identify corruption (τὴν φθοράν) prompts
Aelian’s brief, curious digression on the involvement of some attendant
ants, a detail mentioned in none of the other accounts of this strange Latin
ritual. But Aelian’s ants, alluding, I suggest, to the myth of Zeus’ rape of
Aegina and Hera’s subsequent wrath, provide a further mythical dimension
to the narrative’s thematic concerns with marriage and erotic suspicion. In
that myth, serpents and ants serve as animal agents of the plots of Hera
and Zeus respectively. Discovering that Zeus had seduced Aegina and sired
the hero Aeacus, Hera plagued Aeacus’ island with a poisonous serpent.
But Zeus offered assistance, transforming an army of ants into an army
of men, the Myrmidons, who take their name from the Greek word for
ants, μύρμηκες. In the myth, Zeus’ transformation of the ants rectifies the
damage caused by Hera’s pestilential serpent, but in Aelian’s narrative, that
 Hyg. Fab. ; Ovid has Aeacus narrate his own story (Met. .–), where Juno plagues the
island with not one, but with many thousands of serpents (miliaque . . . serpentum multa, ).
 Conclusion 
symmetry is lost: the ants in the cave are merely ministers of the serpent,
clearing away the impure barley cake whose presence defiles the holy place.
In this narrative, Hera’s serpentine anxiety dominates, marking out for
the Latin population those girls who have been defiled. This archaic Latin
ritual, therefore, connects the cosmically imbalanced relationship between
Hera and Zeus with the problematic marriages of Aeneas, culminating in
his politically motivated union with Lavinia.
Reading this narrative alongside the preceding stories of Laenilla and of
the elephant that avenges his cuckolded master, we get a deeply pessimistic
(albeit partial) view of Roman marriage. In contrast to the idealized image
of the sanctum coniugium propagated during the Augustan period and
reinforced under Septimius Severus, what emerges from these narratives is
an impressionistic picture of the Roman family characterized by deception,
treachery, humiliation, fear, and violence. Even the humorously touching
story of Crassus’ eel reflects an emotional coldness thought to be typical of
the relationship between Roman husbands and wives. And the stories of the
murderous Laenilla, the cuckolded elephant master, and the blindfolded
girls, all emphasize the powerlessness of their Roman characters. Animals
in the wild show more familial pietas than does an infamous wife of the
senatorial class; the Indian elephant does for his Roman master what the
master himself cannot do; and the mantic snake dwelling beneath the Latin
soil is a terrifying illustration of patriarchal erotic anxiety institutionalized
within the social and religious apparatus. All of these animal narratives
reveal the dark heart at the center of Rome’s cultural ideology of marriage
and family, and Aelian’s learned cultural zoology thus turns out to be a
sophisticated medium for deconstructing a foundational institution of the
Roman social order.

Conclusion
Aelian’s interest in the relationship between Greek and Roman is signaled
in the very first chapter of the NA, about the birds of Diomedes. Not only
does the story announce the theme of the privilege of Greek culture in a
world of Western barbarians (i.e., Romans), but its etiology of the birds’
transformation from human men evokes for Roman readers the two most
canonical texts of Latin poetry: Vergil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Consideration of the relevant passages from Vergil and Ovid reveals that
there is latent in Aelian’s programmatic opening story also an interest in

 Cf. NA ., ., ., ., ., ..

 The Hellenized Roman
the potentially fraught relationship between the writer and the princeps,
a theme that I explore more fully in Chapter . Explicitly, though, the
story of the birds of Diomedes speaks to the dual anxiety inherent in
the cultivation of a classical Greek literary persona: his perpetuation of the
fiction of an essential Greek identity is an indication of his concern not to
appear too Roman.
This second facet of Aelian’s literary persona, the distancing of himself
from Roman identity, is seen in a number of chapters in the NA where
Aelian treats stories and characters from the Roman past. In the famous
story of the Capitoline geese, for instance, Aelian refuses to self-identify as
Roman, though it is easy to sense in his narration a resident’s familiarity
with the details of the folk story. In other chapters, there is a noticeable
distancing from Roman political authority, both from the principate (in
the figure of Augustus) and from the senate. Aelian even disassociates the
Roman fasces from their symbolic political power by contextualizing them
within a transcultural discourse about the religious symbolism of birds.
In an important chapter on the peacock, Aelian expresses a lasting pes-
simism about the barbaric quality of Roman culture, a challenge to Rome’s
participation in an ideal vision of a humanistic, international Hellenism.
It is through the medium of Hellenism that Aelian offers his own lit-
erary transformation of the violence associated with the Roman animal
spectacle: in the NA the scholarly pursuit becomes a substitution for the
venatio, or “hunt.” In his elaborate account of the elephants that performed
at the shows produced by Germanicus Caesar, Aelian displaces the most
quintessential act of Roman identity – writing Latin – onto trained animals,
thereby offering a sophisticated commentary on the culturally constructed
quality of Romanness. This story should be read alongside Aelian’s chap-
ter on the peacock, for the latter, operating along cultural stereotypes,
condemned the Roman as an essentially brutish, Hortensian figure. This
chapter on the performing elephants, however, rejects the essentialist the-
ory of cultural identity and offers instead the liberating possibility that if
Roman character is constructed, then there remains a real possibility for
the transformation of one’s self and of one’s culture.
Finally, Philostratus’ biographical notice that Aelian never married or
had children is complemented by the negative depiction of Roman marriage
and family life throughout the NA. Even if Aelian believed in the possibility
of actually achieving the ideals of harmonious marriage within stable family,
the central institutions of Roman ideology, that optimism does not come
across in the narratives themselves. Aelian critiques marriage and family
not just on the basis of personal anecdote, as in the story of Laenilla,
 Conclusion 
but also as they pertain to numerous areas within the culture of public
discourse, namely politics, myth, legend, and religion. Though in his later
work he comes out as Roman and still manages to maintain his Greek
literary persona, it is safe to say that Aelian did not define his Roman
identity through participation in married domestic life.
 c ha p te r 5

Stoicism

Aelian the philosopher?

Despite the philosophical orientation of many of his animal narratives, it is
nevertheless difficult to speak of Aelian’s philosophical thought as entirely
consistent. On the contrary, Aelian’s approach to philosophy in the NA
may be described as eclectic, as he draws upon Platonic and Aristotelian
texts as well as upon later developments in Stoicism, Pythagoreanism, Cyn-
icism, and even Epicureanism. Traditionally, however, scholars have been
most interested in the influence of Stoicism on Aelian’s thought. Aelian’s
Stoicism was hardly dogmatic, and this is consistent with the searching,
fragmented image of the author that I outlined in the introduction. In the
nineteenth century, Schöner argued that Aelian adhered to Stoic doctrine,
though conceding that Aelian indulged in a mixture of ancient philosophi-
cal teachings; Wellmann, however, denied that Aelian was a Stoic, asserting
instead that his philosophical thought represented a debased form of pop-
ular belief. A century later, Dı́az-Regañón López writes of Aelian as a
committed Stoic who shared even their doctrinal belief denying animals
logos, though that belief did not in the least prevent Aelian from admiring
animals’ obedience to a superior nature. Hübner found Aelian’s deviation
from Stoic thought more problematic, sensing an affiliation with Plutarch
in Aelian’s resistance to the Stoic position that animals do not partici-
pate in the divine logos. Kindstrand, reformulating Wellmann’s position in
terms less disparaging than those of his distinguished predecessor, describes
Aelian’s texts as reflecting a generally philosophical attitude, constructed

 Aelian the Platonist (Αἰλιανὸς ὁ Πλατωνικός, Porph. In Harm.  Düring) should not be confused
with Claudius Aelianus, nor should the fragments of that philosopher’s commentary on the Timaeus
be included among Aelian’s fragments (Porph. In Harm. –, ,  Düring=Ael. frs. –
Domingo-Forasté). See Goulet : , Dörrie and Baltes : , and Nesselrath .
 Schöner : – and Wellmann : .
 Dı́az-Regañón Lopez : .  Hübner : .


 Aelian the philosopher? 
for the most part from Stoic and Cynic thought, that was typical of the
educated elite of the early third century.
Manuela Garcı́a Valdés, following the important work of Martha
Nussbaum, considers the influence of Aristotelian thought, whether direct
or indirect, on Aelian. Garcı́a Valdés focuses especially on the way in
which Aristotle complicated the philosophical approach to animal behav-
ior, which in Plato was sharply distinguished from rational human behavior.
Aristotle went a long way in showing that there was not after all such a
clear distinction between the rational, voluntary behavior of humans and
the putatively irrational, involuntary behavior of non-human animals. The
human child offers a compelling analogy. The child’s appetitive desires are,
through a process of socialization, made to conform to normative expecta-
tions, and in this way the human child is transformed into what appears to
be a human adult characterized by rational, voluntary action. Therefore,
according to Aristotle’s thinking, the appetitve desires even of non-human
animals must contain at least an element of rationality. To paraphrase
Garcı́a Valdés: if we do not despise the animal nor over-value the rational,
we will be better able to understand the extent to which the one contributes
to the blossoming of the other. And this is, for Garcı́a Valdés, the ideological
foundation that facilitates Aelian’s own thinking about and representation
of animals as moral examples for human beings. But Aelian was not an
orthodox disciple of Aristotelian doctrine, and the Aristotelian influence
identified by Garcı́a Valdés was filtered through Stoicism, the dominant
school of philosophical thought in the Roman Imperial period. After her
own detailed analysis of Stoic thought in the NA, Garcı́a Valdés con-
cludes that while the Stoic background was certainly influential, Aelian’s
central ideas regarding the moral superiority of animals depart sharply
from Stoicism and are in fact more consistent with Epicurean or Cynic
thought.
I argue here first that Aelian may be understood as a Stoic only in the
most general sense. In this I agree with Wellmann, Kindstrand, and Garcı́a
Valdés. Aelian’s “loose” Stoicism should not imply, however, that he was a
failed philosopher, intellectually weak, or merely subscribing to belief that
was either popular or typical of the educated elite.
This leads to my second point: Aelian was well aware of the specifics
of Stoic thought and was even familiar with Stoic technical terminol-
ogy, but the literary and rhetorical character of his work made extended

 Kindstrand : .  Nussbaum : –.

 Garcı́a Valdés : –.  Ibid. .
 Stoicism
philosophical discourse unsuitable. Not only does Aelian at one point
declare that he has no time for philosophizing (NA .), but he even
declares, “let us leave it to Demokritos and the others to think that they
are able to explain causes for things obscure and unintelligible” (ταῦτα
Δημοκρίτῳ τε καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις καταλείπωμεν ἐλέγχειν τε καὶ τὰς αἰτίας
οἴεσθαι λέγειν ἱκανοῖς ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀτεκμάρτων τε καὶ οὐ συμβλητῶν, .).
One must therefore not confuse literary and rhetorical artifice with a lack
of intellectual depth; Aelian’s compilatory, multifaceted art, in fact, has its
own philosophical implications.
Third, in his treatment of the relationship between animals and the
divine logos of the Stoics, Aelian’s language reveals a complex renegotiation
of the terms of the debate. On the one hand, Aelian partially relies upon
traditional terminology that seems to reinforce the Stoic position that ani-
mals lack reason. He continues, for example, to refer to animals throughout
the NA by means of the philosophically loaded word ἄλογα, “things lack-
ing logos.” On the other hand, Aelian imputes to animals numerous human
virtues that have been granted by nature (φύσις), which itself is consistently
equated with a divine force, and both of these are ultimately unknowable
and “unspeakable” (ἀπόρρητα). By this reasoning, animals’ participation
in divine logos may be merely glimpsed through their reported behavior and
is ultimately one of the divine mysteries. To such mysteries, even doctrinal
Stoicism itself is blind.
Aelian’s animal narratives explore the limits of traditional Stoicism,
and his philosophical idiosyncrasies reveal not a failed philosopher but
rather the failure of doctrinal Stoicism to remain relevant to the variable
literary artist of the Severan age. I resist the notion that the NA projects
a single, fully formed and coherent philosophical persona. The NA is
not, I stress, a philosophical treatise, nor is its aim ultimately to offer a
coherent philosophical argument, despite the programmatic moralizing
claims of the authorial voice in the preface and epilogue. One may attempt
to reconstruct a coherent philosophical position from the various chapters
of the NA, but the fragmentary, variegated nature of the text confounds
those attempts from the outset. Rather than fault Aelian, however, for his
presumed philosophical incoherence, I instead see the text’s philosophical
contradictions and literary fragmentation as signs of the difficulties inherent
in formulating novel responses to the moral failures of Severan Rome.

 Cf. Zucker , who recognizes human possession of logos as paradoxically a privilege but also a
handicap in the NA.
 Stoic doctrine in the third century 

Stoic doctrine in the third century

The mark of Stoicism on Aelian’s writing is everywhere apparent. But
before proceeding to the identification of Stoic ideas in Aelian’s text, a
brief survey of the doctrines of Stoicism is called for. These doctrines
as outlined in the “Life of Zeno” by Diogenes Laertius, Aelian’s near
contemporary, present a clear picture of how Stoicism was understood
by the early third century and should therefore suffice as the background
against which Aelian’s own Stoic thought might be considered. Zeno
divided philosophical thought into three parts: that which pertains to
reason or logos (logic), that which pertains to character or êthos (ethics),
and that which pertains to nature or physis (physics). None of these must
be taught alone, and all must be taught together as being interrelated. The
Stoic philosophers Apollodorus, Chrysippus, and Eudromus all, according
to Diogenes, likened philosophy to an animal: “comparing logic to the
bones and sinews, ethics to the parts that are more fleshy, and physics to
the soul” (.). Despite this simile, according to which animals provide a
model for the very system that these philosophers describe, animals pose a
continual philosophical problem in Stoic thought, as we shall see. Diogenes
offers detailed descriptions of each branch of Stoic philosophy, but what
follows is by no means a complete summary; I have instead restricted
this exposition of Diogenes’ Stoic doxography to those doctrines that are
most relevant to an understanding of Aelian’s philosophical and religious
thought.
Logic is divided into the study of rhetoric and dialectic. By rhetoric is
meant “the science of speaking well regarding words in narrative” (.),
while dialectic is the science “of conversing properly regarding words in
question and answer.” There are in turn three kinds of rhetoric (deliberative,
forensic, and panegyric) and the science of rhetoric as a whole is divided
into the invention of argument (εὕρεσις), style or expression (φράσις),
the arrangement of the material (τάξις), and the performance or delivery
(ὑπόκρισις). Any speech conforming to the rules of rhetoric should be
divided into an introduction (προοίμιον), narrative exposition (διήγησις),
replies to one’s opponents (τὰ πρὸς τοὺς ἀντιδίκους), and a conclusion
 Diogenes’ “kaleidoscopic” presentation of his material bears similarity to Aelian’s own literary
aesthetic: “The thoroughgoing fragmentation of subject matter and authority creates an almost
irresistible temptation for the reader to ignore the author’s literary pretentions, simply to enjoy the
parade of images and ideas, ostensibly emanating from a chorus of ancient authorities” (Hahm
: ). On Diogenes’ composition of the Stoic doxography in particular, see Hahm :
–.
 Logic (.–), ethics (.–), physics (.–).
 Stoicism
or peroration (ἐπίλογος). These ideas would have been well known to
Diogenes’ readers as well as to Aelian and his readers, steeped as they all
were in the rhetorical culture of the early third century, which was by no
means exclusively Stoic.
Diogenes spends considerably more time, however, in laying out the
Stoic emphasis on dialectic and its division into the subjects of discourse
(or even, perhaps, “the things impressed upon the soul”; σημαινόμενα) and
the language by means of which dialogue is conducted (φωνή). According
to Diogenes, Stoic philosophers believe that,
οὐκ ἄνευ δὲ τῆς διαλεκτικῆς θεωρίας τὸν σοφὸν ἄπτωτον ἔσεσθαι ἐν λόγῳ·
τό τε γὰρ ἀληθὲς καὶ τὸ ψεῦδος διαγινώσκεσθαι ὑπ’ αὐτῆς καὶ τὸ πιθανὸν
τό τ’ ἀμφιβόλως λεγόμενον διευκρινεῖσθαι· χωρίς τ’ αὐτῆς οὐκ εἶναι ὁδῷ
ἐρωτᾶν καὶ ἀποκρίνεσθαι. (D.L. .)
Only with dialectic theory will a wise man never be thrown in dialogue, for
truth and falsehood are distinguished by means of it and proper judgment
is made between what is persuasive and what is ambiguous. And without
dialectic it is not possible to question and respond in a systematic manner.
Even the very best training in rhetoric, therefore, is not enough for being
considered “wise” (σοφός) according to Stoic doctrine. The ideal Stoic
philosopher must be equally well versed in formulating a rational argument
as in defending that argument against criticism. This is the process through
which philosophical dialogue removes the underbrush of false opinion and
reveals truth.
Ethics, the second branch of Stoic philosophy, may be divided into:
impulse (ὁρμή), good and evil (ἀγαθὰ καὶ κακά), emotions or passions
(πάθη), virtue or excellence (ἀρετή), the end (τέλος), primary value
and actions (ἡ πρώτη ἀξία καὶ πράξεις), what is proper or fitting (τὰ
καθήκοντα), and what induces one to action or turns one away from
acting (προτροπαί τε καὶ ἀποτροπαί). Diogenes explains that these divi-
sions did not originate with Zeno, but were later developments by Zeno’s
philosophical heirs.
Most relevant in Diogenes’ discussion of the Stoic conception of ethics
is the significance of animals and their role in nature. Nature (φύσις) was
estimated by the Stoics as the supreme governing principle of the universe,
in which case animals are idealized insofar as they live in accordance with
nature. Commenting on the first book of Chrysippus’ treatise On Ends
(Περὶ τελῶν), Diogenes explains that,
Τὴν δὲ πρώτην ὁρμήν φασι τὸ ζῷον ἴσχειν ἐπὶ τὸ τηρεῖν ἑαυτό, οἰκειούσης
αὐτὸ τῆς φύσεως ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς . . . ἀπολείπεται τοίνυν λέγειν συστησαμένην
 Stoic doctrine in the third century 
αὐτὸ οἰκειῶσαι πρὸς ἑαυτό· οὕτω γὰρ τά τε βλάπτοντα διωθεῖται καὶ τὰ
οἰκεῖα προσίεται. (D.L. .)
An animal’s first impulse, they say, is toward taking care of itself, since nature
was bringing it into its domain from the beginning . . . It remains then to
say that [nature], when composing it [the animal], made it dear to itself.
For thus it pushes away what is harmful and admits what is familiar.
And Zeno himself wrote that the ultimate goal of the virtuous life is
“to live in agreement with nature” (.). And this nature of which
Zeno speaks, Diogenes continues, is nothing other than the “right reason”
(ὁ ὀρθὸς λόγος, .), which is identical to Zeus himself. The suggestion
that “reason” itself may be “right” implies of course that there is also “wrong
reason,” and when a rational creature is perverted from what is right, it
must be due to his own errors and not to nature itself, “since nature provides
beginnings that are not perverted” (.).
Regarding the emotions or passions (πάθη), the Stoics claimed that
the wise man was without passion (ἀπαθῆ, .), a term which could
however also be applied to the bad man, insofar as he is hard-hearted and
not to be softened. This, however, is the cost of becoming wise, as in
fact “they say that all excellent men are austere too, because they have no
association with pleasure, nor do they accept invitations to pleasure from
others.” Through their impassivity, the wise become, in a sense, “divine”
or “godlike” (θείους, .), and yet they do not place themselves above the
gods. On the contrary, the Stoic authorities say that:
θεοσεβεῖς τε τοὺς σπουδαίους· ἐμπείρους γὰρ εἶναι τῶν περὶ θεοὺς νομίμων·
εἶναί τε τὴν εὐσέβειαν ἐπιστήμην θεῶν θεραπείας. ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ θύσειν
αὐτοὺς θεοῖς ἁγνούς θ’ ὑπάρχειν· ἐκνεύειν γὰρ τὰ περὶ θεοὺς ἁμαρτήματα.
καὶ τοὺς θεοὺς ἄγασθαι αὐτούς· ὁσίους τε γὰρ εἶναι καὶ δικαίους πρὸς
τὸ θεῖον. μόνους θ’ ἱερέας τοὺς σοφούς· ἐπεσκέφθαι γὰρ περὶ θυσιῶν,
ἱδρύσεων, καθαρμῶν, καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τῶν πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς οἰκείων. (D.L.
.)
Excellent men revere the gods, for they are experienced in the traditional
observances of the gods, and reverence is knowing how to serve the gods.
Indeed they will sacrifice to the gods and remain pure, for they avoid what
is improper concerning the gods. And they are in awe of the gods, for they
are pious and righteous toward the divine. And only the wise are priests, for
they have given consideration to sacrifices, the founding of temples, ritual
purification, and the other things that are dear to the gods.

 See Long : . On the views of Epictetus, see Long : –.
 On the Stoic conception of the orthos logos, see Long : –.
 Stoicism
Stoic reverence toward the gods is followed by reverence towards parents
and brothers (.). The wise man will also take part in politics, they
say, if nothing prevents him from doing so. And the independence that
he achieves through his avoidance of the passions and from his reverence
to the gods makes him truly free, whereas the bad remain slaves (.).
Such freedom may even be seen as a kind of kingship; that is to say that
only the wise are capable of ruling without being liable or accountable to
anyone else. The Stoic philosopher indeed may become the ideal public
man: the most suitable for holding office, he will be the best judge, the
best orator. Further, the ethical austerity of the Stoic ruler will be reflected
in his enactment of the law, even if that means he might risk seeming to
be a tyrant: he will not relax the punishments that the laws indicate, nor
will he wince at their severity (.).
In what seems a non-sequitur, Diogenes ends this section on the Stoic
philosopher’s aptitude for governance and public life by adding,

ἔτι γε τὸν σοφὸν οὐδὲν θαυμάζειν τῶν δοκούντων παραδόξων, οἷον

Χαρώνεια καὶ ἀμπώτιδας καὶ πηγὰς θερμῶν ὑδάτων καὶ πυρὸς ἀναφυσή
ματα. ἀλλὰ μὴν οὐδ’ ἐν ἐρημίᾳ φασι βιώσεται ὁ σπουδαῖος· κοινωνικὸς γὰρ
φύσει καὶ πρακτικός. (D.L. .)
and furthermore [they say that] the wise man wonders at none of those
things that seem paradoxical, such as the vaporous caverns of Charon, the
ebb and flow of the tides, springs of hot water, and eruptions of fire. But
indeed, they say, the excellent man will not live in solitude either, for he is
by nature social and a man of action.

The connection between these two ideas seems odd at first. But in this
section, Diogenes is drawing on the (now lost) first book of Chrysippus’
On Lives (Περὶ βίων), so the remark about the philosopher’s disinclination
to wonder (θαυμάζειν) must be understood within the context of the
discourse on the philosopher’s public life. Given his deep understanding of
nature and the divine reason that guides the natural world, the wise man
will have transcended mere wonderment at natural phenomena. Those
things that inspire wonder in less philosophical minds are things that to
the Stoic philosopher will only seem to be paradoxical (τῶν δοκούντων
παραδόξων). Philosophical learning offers insight into nature’s mysteries
and thus clarity of mind, while to be obsessed by false opinions draws one
away from the sphere of public life and leads to a life of solitude.
Finally, as pertains to Stoic ethics, despite the fact that animals offer to
humans a model for life in harmony with nature, animals are too dissimilar
to humans for us to have a sense of right or lawful obligation towards them
 Stoic doctrine in the third century 
(.). Stoicism thus clearly demarcates between humans as more elevated
and non-human animals as a baser form of existence. Diogenes says that
this tenet is set down in the first book of Chrysippus’ On Justice (Περὶ
δικαιοσύνης), and so even though the idea may not have originated with
Zeno, it was by Aelian’s time a well-established facet of Stoic thought.
Regarding the Stoic study of things pertaining to nature, or physics,
I will restrict the summary here to the topic of the gods and the divine,
omitting the more technical passages of Diogenes’ discussion, since they are
only tangentially relevant to Aelian’s representation of the divine. The world
(κόσμος) is governed by the divine intellect (νοῦς) and by divine providence
(πρόνοια). The divine intellect pervades the world in all its parts, though
to varying degrees (.). Through some things nous is distributed as a
“possession” (ἕξις), something that holds a body together, such as bones
and sinews in an animal body. Through other things, however, the divine
intellect proceeds as itself, as it does through the authoritative part of the
soul, capable of the most elevated form of intellectual activity (). So
suffused with the divine intellect is the world, that Stoics believed the
kosmos itself to be a living thing: rational (λογικόν), possessing a soul
(ἔμψυχον), and intelligent (νοερόν) (–).
Finally, there were attempts by Stoic intellectuals to align Stoic thought
with traditional Hellenic thinking about the gods and the divine. The
Olympian deities, for example, were explained by Stoics as various facets
of the one god, and so,
Δία μὲν γάρ φασι δι’ ὃν τὰ πάντα, Ζῆνα δὲ καλοῦσι παρ’ ὅσον τοῦ
ζῆν αἴτιός ἐστιν ἢ διὰ τοῦ ζῆν κεχώρηκεν, ᾿Αθηνᾶν δὲ κατὰ τὴν εἰς αἰθέρα
διάτασιν τοῦ ἡγεμονικοῦ αὐτοῦ, ῞Ηραν δὲ κατὰ τὴν εἰς ἀέρα, καὶ ῞Ηφαιστον
κατὰ τὴν εἰς τὸ τεχνικὸν πῦρ, καὶ Ποσειδῶνα κατὰ τὴν εἰς τὸ ὑγρόν, καὶ
Δήμητραν κατὰ τὴν εἰς γῆν· ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ τὰς ἄλλας προσηγορίας ἐχόμενοί
τινος οἰκειότητος ἀπέδοσαν (.).
[People] say Dia on account of (dia) whom all things exist. And they call
him Zêna to the extent that he is the cause of life (zên) or pervades through
life (zên). And Athena because of the extension into the ether (aithêr) of

 Cf. the position of Epictetus, who sees “God and non-human animals as a pair of simple extremes,
and presents human beings as complex intermediaries. By virtue of our bodies, we are akin to
the other animals, but by virtue of our minds, we are akin to God” (Long : ). But like
Aelian, Epictetus in his treatment of non-human animals “can be neutral and even complimentary,
depending on the needs of particular contexts” (). On Posidonius, see Gill : –. See
also Wildberger : – and Newmyer : –.
 See Long : – and Gill : –.
 This idea was asserted by Chrysippus, Apollodorus, and Posidonius; it was however denied by
Boethus.
 Stoicism
the authoritative part of the divinity. And Hera on account of its extension
into the air (aêr). And Hephaistos on account of its extension into the fire
through which it creates. And Poseidon on account of its extension into
water. And Demeter on account of its extension into the earth. And likewise
people gave [the divinity] his other forms of address also by fixing upon
some characteristic.
With the old gods thus salvaged, Zeno, Chrysippus and the other leading
Stoic intellectuals held that the world was guided by fate and that divination
was real and valid, for, says Diogenes, “they prove that it is a skill on account
of certain results” (). It is unfortunate that Diogenes does not provide
those “results,” but it suffices to understand the Stoic basis for the validity
of divination: it was a means, through the natural phenomena of the world,
for humans to comprehend the divine providence (πρόνοια) that governed
the kosmos (). Finally, Stoics upheld the traditional belief in guiding
spirits (δαίμονες) and they affirmed that the traditional heroes, such as
Achilles, Orestes, and Theseus were real, “the souls of excellent men which
had been left behind” after their death ().

Stoic doctrine in the NA

Concerning the Stoic study of logic, or that which pertains to the logos,
Aelian would have been completely familiar with the branch that focused
on rhetoric and that part of dialectic at least that focused on language
(φωνή). Aelian’s interest in rhetoric and the care that he took with the
linguistic style of his work has been established, and much of the rhetorical
terminology employed by Aelian in the preface and epilogue of the NA
would have been recognized by contemporary readers equally well versed in
rhetorical training. As I indicated above, however, given the pervasiveness
of such training in the second and third centuries, the rhetorical coloring
of Aelian’s work per se should not be pressed too far as an indication of
Stoic influence.
A more significant influence from Stoic thought may be seen in Aelian’s
idealization of animals for living in harmony with nature, a central tenet of
Stoic thought from the time of Zeno (D.L. .). This notion underlies so
much of Aelian’s presentation of material throughout the NA that only a
few examples are necessary here. The aitnaios fish, Aelian writes, is faithful
to its mate by nature, without the artificial conceits of dowry or marriage
laws (NA .). Nature unites the moray and the viper despite that the one

 Cf. D.H. Dem. , D.L. ..

 Stoic doctrine in the NA 
dwells in the sea and the other on land (.). The chameleon adapts itself
effortlessly to its natural surroundings (.). Animals are endowed with
natural memory and have no need for artificial mnemonic systems (.,
.). Dogs, without the need of a doctor’s knowledge, cure their ailments
by eating certain grasses that grow naturally (.). In all these examples and
in many, many more, animals attract the attention of the writer precisely
because of their self-sufficiency and because they live in accordance with
what nature has given them.
In stark contrast to Aelian’s idealization of animals that live in harmony
with nature is his condemnation of human perversion of nature’s gifts.
Throughout the NA, Aelian offers illustrations of these perversions as
scabrous negative examples of what may be termed the orthos logos of the
Stoics (D.L. .), pointing to figures from both myth and history. From
myth, Aelian deplores, among other things, the sorcery of Medea and
Circe; the treachery of Alkinoe, Laios, and Prokne; and the incest of
Oedipus. In terms of historical figures, Aelian decries a series of despotic
tyrants: the Dionysii of Syracuse, Klearkhos of Heraklea, Apollodoros of
Kassandrea, and Nabis of Sparta. The bee has a better understanding of
the natural laws of kingship than those tyrants (NA ., see Chapter ).
Aelian also condemns the murderers of Pompey and Olympias, the mother
of Alexander, for failing to tend to their dead bodies, a natural right of
the deceased, as indicated by the positive example of dolphins (.). The
Athenians Kallias and Ktesippos and the Roman Hortensius, meanwhile,
incur Aelian’s opprobrium for their gluttony (., .). From Aelian’s
personal experience, there is the curious case of the Roman woman Laenilla,
discussed in the previous chapter, who perverted the natural relationship of
the family by making false accusations against her own children and having
them killed so that she could carry on a sexual affair with one of her slaves
(.). Aelian grieves, finally, in the epilogue because he has throughout
his work praised the piety of animals while having to criticize the piety of
humans (ep., p. , lines –).
There is also throughout the NA a marked anxiety concerning pleasure
(sexual or otherwise) that is characteristic of Stoic thought (D.L. .). The
over-indulgence in pleasure by many animals often meets with the author’s
criticism, while conversely he praises those animals that impose limi-
tations through sexual fidelity or that abstain altogether. He is equally
 NA ., ., ., ., ..  NA ., ..  NA ..
 NA ..  NA ..  NA ..
 Partridges: NA ., ; lustful fish: .; cf. Opp. H. .–.
 Elephants especially, NA ., ., ., but also the aitnaios fish, .; pigeons, .; and crows, ..
 Stoicism
suspicious of male effeminacy as a telltale sign of luxurious living, con-
demning, for example, the depilatory practices of the men of Tarentum
and Etruria (NA .). This is consistent with the hostility that Aelian
shows towards the followers of Epicurus, whom he elsewhere stereotypes
as being soft and effeminate and an infectious plague in Greek cities. But
Aelian’s attitude towards pleasure is by no means univocal and consistent
in the NA, as I discuss at length in Chapter .
Religious piety towards the traditional gods and heroes is demonstrated
throughout the NA, both in terms of a reverence for cult and in terms of
a creative engagement with myth. Both of these facets of Aelian’s religious
piety will be treated at greater length in the following chapter. It suffices to
say here that Aelian’s religious piety is consistent with the characterization
of Stoic piety described by Diogenes Laertius and quoted above (D.L.
.).
Aelian’s reverence for filial piety, prized also by the Stoics, was indicated
in part by his scorn for the Roman woman Laenilla. But positive examples
of filial piety by non-human animals abound in the NA. Aelian offers, for
example, the poignant description of a female dolphin’s self-sacrifice to
save her children, and the female dolphin is, for Aelian, of all creatures the
most completely devoted to her children (φιλοτεκνότατος ἐς τὰ ἔσχατα,
NA .). There is also the tale told by Indian Brahmins, of the boy who
sowed his dead parents into his head to carry them into exile, away from
the ungrateful children who scorned them; for this act of extreme piety
(τῆς εὐσεβείας τὴν ὑπερβολήν, .), the god Helios transformed the boy
into the beautiful, long-lived hoopoe.
Diogenes explains that by avoiding the passions and by revering the
gods, the Stoic wise man would become truly free, whereas the rest of
mankind would remain slaves (D.L. .). This linking of wisdom and
independence is also apparent in the NA and was the subject of Chapter .
It will be remembered that in the epilogue, while responding to those who
might criticize his compositional method, Aelian declares, “I am not the
slave of another’s criticism and purpose, and I deny that I must follow
someone else wherever he might lead me” (ep., p. , lines –). The
author’s avowed independence is a significant part of his persona, in that he
draws attention to himself as a literary renegade, a quality that he valorizes
as the mark of the wise man. Diogenes several times refers to the Stoic wise

 Frs.  and  Hercher,  and  Domingo-Forrasté; cf. NA . and VH ..

 Related to Stoic independence and freedom is suicide: “even the most extreme of Stoic morals is
practiced by animals: the suicide of a camel (.) and of a horse (.),” Hübner : –.
 Stoic doctrine in the NA 
man as σπουδαῖος (“excellent, worth paying serious attention to”), surely
preserving a key word from the original writings of Zeno, Chrysippus, and
the other Stoic philosophers. Furthermore, when describing the seriousness
of his own research and literary activity in the second half of his prologue,
Aelian embeds a cluster of words sharing the same stem (σπουδ-), thereby
evoking the Stoic background against which he defines the value of his own
work. In other words, Aelian appropriates the language of Stoic wisdom
for his own intellectual self-portrait.
Given the mostly idealized representation of animal behavior in the NA,
it is perhaps surprising that Aelian seems also to uphold the Stoic tenet
that animals lack the rational element (logos) that sets humans apart as
superior. Despite his thoroughgoing idealization of animals and despite
that animals serve as positive foils for the moral corruption of humans,
Aelian nevertheless throughout the work consistently refers to non-human
animals as “creatures without logos” (ἄλογα ζῷα) and even explicitly asserts
that non-human animals have no share of logos (NA ., p. , lines –;
.). Aelian thus retains Stoic language when writing about animals, even
if at the same time he challenges readers to reconsider the criteria according
to which humans are generally distinguished as superior.
Aelian is hardly naı̈ve when it comes to the question of animal intelli-
gence. Discussing the fidelity of dogs, for example, Aelian offers an elabo-
rate narrative concerning King Pyrrhos of Epiros, who once on a journey
encountered a corpse and beside the corpse a faithful dog that would not
leave the side of its deceased master, even though the dog was suffering
from severe starvation. The king tended the dog, and in turn the dog
became a faithful companion of the king. One day the dog accompanied
the king while he was inspecting his troops, but when the dog recognized
among the soldiery the murderers of his former master, he could not con-
tain himself and tried to indicate the soldiers by jumping, barking, and
clawing at them. Knowing the dog’s character, Pyrrhos naturally became
suspicious: on the evidence of the dog’s behavior, the soldiers were arrested
and tortured, and they confessed their crime. The moralizing voice of the
narrator then comes to the fore:
καὶ δοκεῖ μὲν μῦθος ταῦτα τοῖς ὅσοι Διὸς ἑταιρείου καὶ φιλίου τοῦ αὐτοῦ
θεσμὸν πατήσαντες εἶτα μέντοι ζῶντας προύδοσαν τοὺς φίλους καὶ ἀπο
θανόντας· ἐγὼ δὲ οὐ πείθομαι τοῖς νοοῦσι κακῶς τὰ τῆς φύσεως καλά,
ἥπερ οὖν εἰ τοῖς ἀλόγοις μετέδωκεν εὐνοίας τε καὶ στοργῆς, πάντως που

 D.L. ., , –, , –, , , , .
 NA pr., lines  (ἐσπούδασται),  (οὐκ ἀσπούδαστον),  (σπουδάσαι),  (σπουδῆς ἄξιον).
 Stoicism
καὶ τῷδε τῷ ζῴῳ τῷ λογικῷ μετέδωκε μᾶλλον. ἀλλὰ οὐ χρῶνται τῷ
δώρῳ. (NA .)
And this seems like storytelling to those who, having trampled upon the
bond of Zeus, the god of companions and friends, then betray their friends
when they are living and when they are dead. But I myself don’t listen to
those people who ignore the benefits of nature, which therefore, if it grants
to irrational creatures a share of goodwill and affection, grants a greater
share in all ways, I suppose, even to this logical creature. But they don’t take
advantage of this gift.
We might expect from the way the story develops that Aelian would
conclude with some such facile remark as “therefore dogs too have reason.”
But the moralist momentarily forgets the dog and instead laments human
failure to live up to our supposed rational superiority to animals. These
remarks make it clear that Aelian appears to conform to the Stoic doctrine
that humans alone of creatures have been endowed by nature with logos.
Further, Aelian declares that he wants nothing to do with those who
disdain the rational faculty that nature has given them and whose life is
therefore characterized by moral depravity. It should be noted, however,
that Aelian’s conformity to the Stoic division between rational humans
and irrational beasts is not unqualified. Reconsider the statement that
nature “grants a greater share in all ways, I suppose (που), even to this
logical creature.” The apparently offhand “I suppose” subtly undermines
the certainty of his assertion, and I shall argue below that such wavering is
the sign of a more critical engagement with Stoic thought.
Diogenes noted that because animals were so fundamentally different
from humans, it was not necessary for humans to harbor a sense of right
toward animals (D.L. .). The question of animals’ “rights” in Aelian
is difficult. Indeed, the writer will in the epilogue lament the destruction
of animals in the hunt, offering his own book instead as a surrogate,
non-violent means of taking pleasure in animals (NA ep. , lines –
). Elsewhere, however, in typically Stoic manner, Aelian condones the
exploitation of animals by humans and even the killing of animals for
religious purposes. The discourse on cattle that concludes Book  of the
NA may be considered as representative:
Τὸ τῶν βοῶν ἄρα πάγχρηστον ἦν γένος, καὶ ἀνθρώποις ζῷον λυσιτελέσ
τατον, καὶ εἰς γεωργίας κοινωνίαν καὶ εἰς ἀγωγὴν φόρτου διαφόρου. καὶ
 See also NA ..
 Cf. the moralizing statement that concludes the following narrative also: “And irrational creatures
don’t know these things, but humans who do know them don’t bear them in mind” (καὶ ταῦτα μὲν
οὐκ οἶδε τὰ ἄλογα, ἄνθρωποι δὲ εἰδότες οὐ φυλάττονται, NA .).
 Stoic doctrine in the NA 
γάλακτος ἐμπλῆσαι βοῦς ἀγαθός ἐστι, καὶ βωμοὺς κοσμεῖ, καὶ ἀγάλλει
πανηγύρεις, καὶ πανθοινίαν παρέχει. (NA .)
The genus of cattle is indeed most useful, and for humans it is a creature
most valuable, both for sharing the task of plowing and for the conveyance
of various cargoes. And an ox is good at filling one up with milk, and it
adorns altars, and it glorifies gatherings on holy days, and it offers a banquet
for everyone
Aelian’s lavish panegyric on cattle reveals the truth of the creature’s role
in religious festivals (πανηγύρεις): to praise the ox is to acknowledge its
enslavement to human industry, its sacrifice at the altars of human gods, and
its ability to feed the multitude. Elsewhere Aelian will even record miracles
of the willing appearance of animals at the altar: they want to be sacrificed
to the gods, freeing humans from any sense of guilt. To conform to Stoic
thought in this regard is also to conform to a commonplace understanding
of the place of animals in various facets of Roman life.
Connected with reverence for the gods and for cult worship is the
Stoic belief in providence and divination (D.L. .), a belief shared by
Aelian. Mantic abilities or qualities are attributed to numerous animals
in the NA. Also of major significance in this regard are the surviving
fragments from two of Aelian’s lost works, On Providence (Περὶ προνοίας)
and On Manifestations of the Divine (Περὶ θείων ἐναργειῶν), which appar-
ently offered many illustrations of the divine intelligence that governs the
world as well as the power of the gods to punish those who disdain that
intelligence.
Finally, I should mention the Stoic emphasis on public life and the
criticism of those who live their lives in solitude. One could perhaps claim
that Aelian’s turn away from the world of declamation in favor of the
life of a scholar may be construed somewhat as a retreat from public
life. We should not forget, however, even though Aelian does not discuss
it in the NA, that he also played a very public role as high priest. If
the evidence of the Souda is to be believed, and Aelian was indeed an
arkhiereus in Praeneste or Rome, then he would likely have agreed with
Diogenes’ summary of the Stoic notion that “only the wise are priests, for
they have given consideration to sacrifices, the founding of temples, ritual
purification, and the other things that are dear to the gods” (.).

 NA ., ., ..  See Wilkins .

 NA . (bees), . (raven), . (vulture), . (raven), . (ibis), . (crocodile), . (birds, fish),
. (elephants), . (serpent).
 Kindstrand : –.  NA Ep. , lines –; cf. Philostr. VS .–.
 Stoicism

Deviations from Stoic doctrine in the NA

Proceeding in order from Diogenes’ doxography in the “Life of Zeno,” the
most striking deviation from Stoic doctrine in Aelian’s NA is the nearly
complete absence of dialectic. This was, according to Diogenes, a necessary
complement to the study of rhetoric, and only through mastery of dialectic
could the Stoic wise man gain a complete understanding of logic, or that
branch of the philosophy concerned with logos (D.L. .). The absence
of dialectic in the NA would seem therefore to be a serious shortcoming
for one striving to live up to the Stoic ideal, and this way of looking
at the issue has led to disparaging characterizations of Aelian as a failed
philosopher. I do not want the preceding section of this chapter, detailing
the overlap between the NA and Stoic doctrine, to give the impression that
Aelian’s intent was to fashion himself as a Stoic philosopher. Familiarity
with the text, in fact, reveals a more varied and idiosyncratic approach to
philosophical thought. It must be remembered that despite the significant
influence of philosophy and despite its numerous philosophical elements,
the NA is not a philosophical text, nor is Aelian to be understood as a
philosopher: he is reluctant to identify himself as a philosopher and he is
certainly not interested in the development of a philosophical argument.
We must, rather, encounter Aelian on his own terms, as a writer. In order
to understand Aelian’s philosophical thought (if we can speak at all of
a totalizing philosophical thought for this most polyphonic of writers),
we must be attuned to those moments in the text when philosophy and
literature intersect.
That said, I wish for the moment to consider the only instance in the
NA when Aelian does broach the topic of dialectic, and it will become
evident that, far from lacking understanding of this crucial branch of Stoic
thought, Aelian in fact is familiar enough with dialectic that he is able to
recognize and satirize those for whom the knowledge of dialectic is only
partial. I refer to one of Aelian’s personal anecdotes, quoted here in full:
Τὸ δέ γε ἐνθυμητικὸν καὶ διαλεκτικὸν καὶ τὸ τοῦδε μᾶλλον ἢ τοῦδε αἱρετὸν
εἰ καὶ τὰ ζῷα οἶδεν, εἰκότως ἂν εἴποιμεν διδάσκαλον τῶν ὅλων τὴν φύσιν
ἄμαχον. ἐμοὶ γοῦν τις γευσάμενος διαλεκτικῆς καὶ κυνηγεσίων ἁμωσγέπως
ἐχόμενος τοιαῦτα ἔλεγεν. ἦν θηρατικὴ κύων, ἦ δ’ ὅς. οὐκοῦν λαγὼ κατ’
ἴχνια ᾔει. καὶ ὃ μὲν οὐχ ἑωρᾶτό πω, μεταθέουσα δὲ ἡ κύων ἐντυγχάνει
που τάφρῳ, καὶ διαπορεῖ ἆρά γε ἐπὶ δεξιὰ ἄμεινον ἢ ἐπὶ θάτερα διώκειν·
ὡς δ’ ἀποχρώντως ἐδόκει σταθμήσασθαι, εἶτα εὐθύωρον ὑπερεπήδησεν.

 Wellmann : .

 Deviations from Stoic doctrine in the NA 
ὁ φάσκων οὖν διαλεκτικός τε εἶναι καὶ θηρατικὸς ταύτῃ πῇ συνάγειν τὴν
ὑπὲρ τῶν λεχθέντων ἐπειρᾶτο ἀπόδειξιν. ἐπιστᾶσα ἡ κύων ἐσκοπεῖτο καὶ
πρὸς ἑαυτὴν ἔλεγεν ‘ἤτοι τῇδε ἢ τῇδε ἢ ἐκείνῃ ὁ λαγὼς ἐτράπετο. οὔτε
μὴν τῇδε οὔτε τῇδε· ἐκείνῃ ἄρα.’ καὶ οὔ μοι ἐδόκει σοφίζεσθαι· τῶν γὰρ
ἰχνῶν μὴ ὁρωμένων ἐπὶ τάδε τῆς τάφρου, κατελείπετο ὑπερπηδῆσαι τὸν
λαγὼν αὐτήν. εἰκότως οὖν ἐπήδησε καὶ αὐτὴ κατ’ αὐτόν· ἰχνευτικὴ γὰρ
καὶ εὔρινος ἐκεῖνος ἢ ἐκείνη γε ἡ κύων ἦν. (NA .)
If animals too were to understand syllogism and dialectic and the choice of
one thing over another, then I would reasonably say that nature is the
invincible teacher of all things. At any event, a man who had had a taste
of dialectic and who one way or another was addicted to hunting told me
the following. There was a female hunting dog, he said. Now, she was on
the trail of a hare. And the hare wasn’t to be seen anywhere, but the dog,
running after it, encountered a trench at some point, and she was at a loss
whether it was better to pursue to the right or to the left. And as she thought
she had sufficiently calculated it, she then leapt straight over it. So the man
who said that he was proficient in both dialectic and the hunt tried in the
following way to formulate a proof in defense of what he had said. The dog,
standing there, contemplated and said to herself, “The hare went either this
way, this way, or that way. It didn’t go this way or this way; it went that way
then.” And I don’t think she was dealing in subtleties, for since she couldn’t
see the trail on this side of the trench, the remaining possibility was that the
hare jumped over it. As was to be expected, then, she too jumped over after
it, for he – or in this case she – was good at tracking and keen-scented.
Aelian begins from the Stoic position that animals do not in fact possess
logos and that they are therefore incapable of higher-order philosophical
thought, as it is exercised in syllogism and dialectic. He then introduces an
anonymous interlocutor whom he humorously describes as having “had a
taste of dialectic and who one way or another was addicted to hunting.”
The man is obviously a dilettante, and his pretensions to philosophy cannot
mask his true passion. The story that the man tells Aelian is an attempt
to fuse hunting and logic, intellectualizing the one and offering a practical
application of the other. Interestingly, though, the man does not offer

 A translation of ἐνθυμητικόν, attested by all the manuscripts. Hercher’s emendation, ἐνθυμημετικόν,

is attractive: “that which concerns the enthymêmê,” Aristotle’s term for a rhetorical syllogism or
deductive reasoning (Rh. b), which would accurately describe the cogitation of the dog as
ventriloquized by the dialectician-hunter. I nevertheless opt, along with GLR, for the reading of
the manuscripts. Though the adjective ἐνθυμητικός is not in LSJ, Stephanus defined it in the
TLG as “Promptus ad excogitandum, comminiscendum,” and this meaning could satisfactorily be
applied to the substantive used by Aelian. But it seems most likely that Aelian (or his copyists)
merely corrupted ἐνθυμημετικόν to ἐνθυμητικόν, and the evidence of the anonymous commentary
on Hermogenes’ On legal issues [Περὶ στάσεων], VII.. Walz, shows that Aelian was not alone
in doing so.
 Stoicism
himself as combined logician and hunter, but instead projects that role onto
the female dog, who in turn becomes the man’s alter ego. When the man
then tries to offer a proof (ἀπόδειξιν) in defense of his self-identification
as proficient in both dialectic and hunting, he himself performs the role
of the philosophizing she-dog. In an intriguing syllepsis of genres, Aelian’s
text instantiates philosophy, narrative, and comic drama all at once.
After the man acts out the mental activity by which the dog chose to leap
across the trench in pursuit of her quarry, Aelian’s skeptical voice reasserts
itself, doubtful that a mere process of elimination may be equated with
dealing in subtleties (σοφίζεσθαι), the stuff of real philosophy. Her choice
to leap over the trench was to be expected, considering that “he – or in
this case she (ἐκεῖνος ἢ ἐκείνη γε ἡ κύων) – was good at tracking and keen-
scented.” This final clause is difficult to translate and has posed a problem
for editors of Aelian’s text. The text as I have printed it reflects the reading
of the majority of the manuscripts; there is only one minor variant, attested
by a fourteenth-century manuscript (H): ἢ ἐκεῖνος ἢ ἐκείνη, the additional ἤ
reinforcing the alternative subjects of the sentence, “either that man or that
dog.” Reiske and Hercher, however, both sought to eliminate the difficulty
altogether by excising ἐκεῖνος ἢ from the text and making the female dog
the unambiguous subject of the sentence. I think the manuscripts must be
correct, though. Self-consciously mistaking the dog as male (ἐκεῖνος) like
its human hunter, Aelian wittily signals to his readers how well the man
performed the role of canine companion. The momentary confusion of
man and dog deflates the hunter’s philosophical pretensions. Through his
debased act of dramatic mimêsis, he becomes ridiculous, and Aelian allows
himself the exalted position as Stoic from which he might look down
upon the hunter as a charming, but philosophically misguided rustic. A
philosophizing dog, indeed!
But Aelian’s arrogant Stoic position is itself a performance. Aelian has,
I suggest, turned the tables on his philosophical critics. Standing back
from this particular narrative and considering the NA in its totality, we
see that Aelian is doing on a massive scale exactly the same thing as his
hunter-dialectician, the putative target of his satire. The hunter is inter-
ested only in trying to prove the logical faculty of his hunting dog, whereas
Aelian gives all animals center stage over the space of seventeen books
and shows them to be possessed of a multitude of human virtues, possibly
even of divine reason. The anonymous hunter-dialectician may therefore
be read as Aelian’s own alter ego, a knowing projection of the Stoic crit-
icism that his text is un-philosophical, naı̈ve, dilettantish. Meanwhile, in
his own role as narrator, Aelian has anticipated and usurped the position of
 Deviations from Stoic doctrine in the NA 
philosopher-critic, brilliantly ventriloquizing the voice of the Stoic wise
man, adept at sniffing out philosophical pretenders. What seems like con-
sistency with Stoic doctrine turns out upon closer inspection to be a sophis-
ticated literary satire exposing not the hunter-dialectician – an all too easy
target – but the limits and short-sightedness of philosophical dogma, as
Aelian the writer gets the upper hand.
Aelian’s obvious fascination with the wonder inspired by natural phe-
nomena is another remarkable departure from Stoic thought. Diogenes
Laertius of course said that the Stoic wise man, having mastered physics
(ta phusika), would not be naı̈ve enough to be overawed by the natural
world (D.L. .). Aelian’s NA on the other hand simply luxuriates in
paradoxography for its own sake, even when scientific explanations are
available. A case in point is when he discusses the apparently mysterious
quality of seawater to contain within itself sweet water suitable for drinking.
Aelian’s authority for the natural phenomenon is Empedokles, although
he explicitly denies us Empedokles’ scientific explanation: “and he tells the
physical cause of this part that turns sweet in salt water, which cause you
will learn from him” (καὶ τὴν αἰτίαν τοῦδε τοῦ ἐν τῇ ἅλμῃ γλυκαινομένου
λέγει φυσικήν, ἣν ἐκεῖθεν εἴσεσθε, NA .). Denying the reader the sci-
entific explanation, Aelian emphasizes instead the wonder inspired by the
mysteries of nature. It should also be noted that this example offers not
a complete denial of the scientific, but only a denial that is appropriate
within the literary conventions of his text.
I suggest however that this is also more than literary convention, that
Aelian’s adoption of paradoxography as a primary literary medium rein-
forces his interest in the divine as well as his interrogation of Stoic doctrine.
From the Stoic point of view, the paradoxographical quality of Aelian’s work
might seem like a failure to master ta phusika. Aelian however turns this
perceived failure into a philosophical virtue. Time and again throughout
the NA he attributes the strange, bizarre, and curious to “some unspeak-
able nature” (φύσις τις ἀπόρρητος, vel sim.), his point being precisely
that nature in its totality cannot be mastered, much less articulated by
human beings. How could one claim to explain the miraculous generation
of small fish in mud (NA .) or the spontaneous veneration of the new
moon by elephants (.)? There is a philosophical dimension to Aelian’s
religious piety. Just as in the preface Aelian appropriated the Stoic figure
of the spoudaios and applied it to himself as an independent literary artist,
 Cf. S.E. P. .–, –.  Schöner : –.
 NA ., ; ., ; ., , ; ., , ; .; ., ; .; .; .; .; ., , , ;
., ; ., ; Ep. , line .
 Stoicism
so here too he refigures his interest in ta paradoxa – so quintessentially
unStoic – as the mark of one who is truly wise insofar as he does not claim
to know the unknowable. Further, by attributing the overwhelming evi-
dence of animal virtue to phusis as a divine mystery, Aelian simultaneously
questions Stoic certainties regarding logos itself, which the Stoics equated
with phusis and every other understanding of the divine. Through the
language of an unspeakable, divine nature, Aelian restores to animals the
possibility of rational logos, a possibility that Stoic doctrine denies. Regard-
less of Aelian’s conventional application of the word ἄλογα to describe
animals, one always gets the sense that Aelian is testing the limits of that
word.
Aelian’s probing, undoctrinaire relationship with Stoicism can also be
detected in the midst of a lengthy discourse on the Egyptian ibis:
καὶ τῷ ῾Ερμῇ δέ φασι τῷ πατρὶ τῶν λόγων φιλεῖται, ἐπεὶ ἔοικε τὸ εἶδος τῇ
φύσει τοῦ λόγου· τὰ μὲν γὰρ μέλανα ὠκύπτερα τῷ τε σιγωμένῳ καὶ ἔνδον
ἐπιστρεφομένῳ λόγῳ παραβάλλοιτο ἄν, τὰ δὲ λευκὰ τῷ προφερομένῳ τε
καὶ ἀκουομένῳ ἤδη καὶ ὑπηρέτῃ τοῦ ἔνδον καὶ ἀγγέλῳ, ὡς ἂν εἴποις. (NA
.)
And they say that it is dear to Hermes, the father of logoi, since its form
resembles the nature of logos, for its long, black quill feathers would be
compared to the logos that is silent and turned inward, while its white
feathers would be compared to the logos that is both brought forth and is
actually heard, the servant and messenger of what is inside, so you might
say.
This is a learned reference to a bit of Stoic technical terminology, adapted
probably from Apion, whom Aelian cites elsewhere in the passage. Sto-
icism, and Aelian’s work also for that matter, is premised on the idea of a
transcendent, cosmic logos that pervades all matter, and the divine quality
of this logos is manifested most intensely in living creatures. Stoic thought
further divides human logos into the internal (endiathetos) and the external
(prophorikos). The logos endiathetos signified the internal capacity for rea-
son, while the logos prophorikos signified the capacity to express reason in
speech. Apion, then, could read the very body of the Egyptian ibis, with
its stark contrast between black and white feathers, as nature’s allegory for
this Stoic bifurcation of logos.
This division of logos seems to correspond with the Stoic division between
rhetoric and dialectic, the absence of which from the NA was playfully
 Cf. Zucker : .
 See Pohlenz : –, Mühl : –, Hülser : –, Chiesa : –, Matelli
: –, Labarrière : –, Kamesar : –.
 Conclusion 
acknowledged by Aelian, as noted above. What then are we to make of
Aelian’s incorporation of this bit of Stoic erudition into his discourse on
the ibis? Though Aelian may seem dismissive of the idea (ὡς ἂν εἴποις,
he concludes ambiguously, “so you might say”), the allegory also offers an
instructive truth for those who might seek to attack the un-philosophical
orientation of Aelian’s text. If the logos endiathetos is, like dialectic, more
akin to the subtleties of “real” philosophy, then the logos prophorikos, rely-
ing on verbal and literary strategies, is related to rhetoric. But Aelian’s
text seems to reject the Stoic balance between the two forms of human
logos, indulging instead in an extensive literary project of rewriting and
recombining what has already been written about the virtue of animals.
In other words, the NA is all logoi prophorikoi. The internal dialectic of
Aelian the philosopher is off limits to the reader of his text; it is silent and
turned inward, as symbolized by the black quill feathers of the ibis. It is
not necessarily absent. What we get instead is the variegated literary explo-
ration of the multifaceted understanding of the cosmic logos as it has been
articulated across time and across cultures and ultimately filtered through
the classicizing, syncretic Hellenism of the Roman Imperial era. Instead
of penetrating to an understanding of the single, transcendent divine, the
NA offers a cast of local gods and goddesses, from Spain to India, whose
diverse methods of worship and relationships to different animals are more
often represented by the author as curiosities to be wondered at and their
narratives as fragmentary expressions for the reader’s private philosophical
or religious contemplation.

Conclusion
Aelian was a Stoic only in the most general sense. The NA reflects some
central tenets of Stoic belief: the importance of rhetoric, the idealization of
living life in harmony with nature, condemnation of human perversion of
nature’s gifts, anxiety concerning pleasure (sexual or otherwise), religious
piety towards the traditional gods and heroes, the reverence for filial piety,
and the emphasis on wisdom achieved through independence and impas-
sivity. Aelian even retains traditional Stoic language when writing about
animals, referring to them throughout the NA as “irrational,” but he is
also aware that his narratives about animal virtues push traditional Stoic
language to its limits. Aelian thereby challenges readers to reconsider the
criteria according to which humans are generally distinguished as superior,
even as he appears to be complicit with human use of slave-animals for
industry and the sacrifice of animals for religious purposes.
 Stoicism
Despite these correspondences, there are also important deviations from
Stoic doctrine in the NA, the most noteworthy of which is the nearly
complete absence of dialectic, believed by the Stoics to be a necessary
complement to the study of rhetoric. Aelian does address dialectic in an
important chapter on a philosophizing hunting dog, but the narrative voice
that questions the dog’s intellect (tracking a scent is not the same thing as
dealing in philosophical subtleties) turns out to be Aelian’s sophisticated
satire showing up the limitations of doctrinaire Stoicism. The NA also
rejects the Stoic injunction against wonder. The Stoic master of physics
(ta phusika) should approach natural phenomena with reason (logos), but
the NA instead indulges in sheer wonderment at the world of animals.
Approaching the nature of animals with wonder and ascribing their virtues
to a divine mystery, Aelian restores to animals the possibility of participating
in a rational logos that Stoicism itself is incapable of grasping.
 c h a p te r 6

Animals, divinity, and myth

Divinity was important to Aelian, but it is difficult to speak with cer-

tainty about Aelian’s religious thought. This difficulty has elicited contrast-
ing responses from modern scholars. Wilamowitz-Möllendorff described
Aelian’s belief as being both childish and insistent. Hübner however
speaks of Aelian’s “pure religiosity” (“echte Religiosität”) in contrast to
what Erwin Rohde identified as merely “rhetorical piety” (“rhetorische
Frömmigkeit”). Though perhaps insistent, Aelian’s religious thought is
certainly not childish. And though it is also unquestionably sincere, that
does not mean that it is untouched by rhetoric or that it is not treated
without irony or even humor. In the first section of this chapter, I discuss
in detail how Aelian represents divinity in the NA, specifically divinity’s
interaction with the world of animals. It will be seen that Aelian’s depic-
tion of cult in the NA, of religious practice from Spain to India, alternates
from the pious to the merely curious. Then in the following sections, I
deal with Aelian’s problematization of myth-as-fiction and his simulta-
neous indulgence in muthopoiêsis, or “storytelling.” When Aelian allows
himself to indulge in the elaboration of myth, the reader is witness to the
writer’s engagement with the divine at its most creative. Writing, or rather
re-writing myth, Aelian mediates multiple narrative traditions about the
gods and the divine and in turn defines his own religious truth.

Animals and divinity

By far the most common religious significance of animals in the NA is
their status as creatures sacred to one or more gods or as creatures with spe-
cial associative relationships with divinity. Thus we read frequent notices
 Wilamowitz-Möllendorff –: .  Hübner : .  Rohde : .
 NA ., , ; ., , ; ., , ; ., ; .; ., , , , , , , ; .; ., , ;
., , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; ., , , , , , , , , , , ,
, ; ., , , , , , , ; ., ; ., ; ., ; .; ., , .


 Animals, divinity, and myth
about what animals are sacred to Apollo (raven, swan, hawk, wolf, ser-
pent, deer, bull), Isis (vulture, scorpion, gazelle, cow, asp, dog), Artemis
(deer, partridge, goat, gazelle, hare), Hera (dogfish, vulture, serpent), or
Aphrodite (cow, turtle dove, swallow). Some associations between ani-
mal and divinity are familiar, others less so. Thus Zeus is throughout the
NA associated with the lion and eagle. But not everyone knows that the
local god Adranos in Sicily has hounds in attendance at his temple there
(NA .).
A more specific association between animals and divinity is the role
that certain animals play in cult, including their role as sacrificial victims.
This is a favorite theme in the NA. In one chapter, Aelian displays his
reverence for the role of oxen as sacrificial victims, how they ornament
the altars of the gods and provide a feast for pious attendees of religious
festivals (NA .). Aelian’s depiction of the mantic serpent attached to
the temple of Juno at Lanuvium also offers insight into Aelian’s complex
relationship with Roman cultural identity (see Chapter ). But perhaps the
most beautiful description is Aelian’s account of the choral performance of
a flock of swans as they celebrate the rites of Hyperborean Apollo (.).
Much of Aelian’s representation of animals in cult was of course informed
by his scholarly research, but his firsthand experience of cult in Praeneste
and in Rome must also have played its part in shaping the NA. I discuss
Aelian’s familiarity with the Egyptian cult of Isis in Chapter , but con-
sider also the lore associated with the Anagogia and Katagogia, festivals
in honor of Aphrodite of Eryx in Sicily, when a flock of pigeons signified
the departure and advent of the goddess from Libya (NA .). Knowledge
of the festivals could well have been familiar to Aelian from analogous
celebrations at the temple of Aphrodite of Eryx on the Capitoline. The
Romans captured Aphrodite’s temple in Eryx in  bce, and the cult,
apparently retaining its strong Punic and Greek associations, was estab-
lished in Rome in  bce after the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene. The
cultural significance of the temple in Rome is attested by the fact that a
connection with the original cult at Eryx was maintained into the Imperial
period. Further, the position of the temple of Aphrodite of Eryx on the
Capitoline is a sign of the cult’s prominence in Roman religious and civic
life. This background enriches our understanding of the religious dynamic
in the NA, but we should avoid thinking that participation in cult was a
 NA .; .; ., , ; ., , , , , , , , , , ; ., , , ; ., ; ..
 See De Vido .  Plb. .; cf. D.S. ..
 Cic. Div. Caec. –; Str. .., ..; Verg. A. .–.
 Liv. ..; ..; ...  Tac. Ann. ..; Suet. Cl. ..
 Animals and divinity 
religious experience more “real” than encounters with the divine that were
mediated through literature or even hearsay. That Aelian is generally silent
about first-hand participation in cult (his role as high priest, for example)
in no way detracts from the significance of divinity and the power of the
divine that pervades the NA.
Animals also play a prominent role in religious etiological narratives in
the NA. We hear, for example, of the divine origins of certain species:
Prometheus invented the goat (NA .), while Egyptians believe that the
oxurhunkhos fish was born from the wounds of Osiris, whom they associate
with the Nile (.). The Nemean lion, says Aelian, fell from Selene
at the bidding of Hera (.), and the bulls of Khaonia, in the north-
western part of Greece, are said to be descendants of the oxen of Geryon
(.). More frequently, narratives explaining the origins of animals entail
metamorphosis of some kind. Thus, the mollusk known as the nêritês
used to be a boy, the beloved of either Aphrodite or Poseidon (., see
Chapter ). Similarly, Apollo turned the sailor Pompilos into the fish of
that name (.); Hera transformed Gerana, the queen of the Pygmies,
into a crane (geranos, .); and in India a pious boy was transformed
by Helios into the hoopoe (., see Chapter ). In one curious case, the
phenomenon works in the opposite direction, as a divinity itself may have
animal origins: Aelian narrates the tale of an Italian woodland god, bearing
the face of a goat, that was born from the union of a she-goat and a Sybarite
goatherd named Krathis (.).
Etiological narratives in the NA also explain the divine causes of certain
animal behaviors. Particularly intriguing is the story of the molting of
the snake, said to be the result of a pharmakon for old age, awarded by
Zeus to informants against Prometheus’ theft of fire; the pharmakon ends
up as the property of the snake by a humorous twist involving a thirsty
pack-ass and the snake’s guardianship of a freshwater spring. Aelian even
provides literary precedents for the very ancient story, which, as we now
know, can be traced back in its earliest form to the epic of Gilgamesh
(NA .). Further examples: frogs on the island of Seriphos make no
noise because Perseus prayed to Zeus for their silence (.), and there are
tame fish in the river Aborras (between the Tigris and Euphrates), where
Hera is said to have bathed after her marriage to Zeus (.). Finally, the
association with divinity explains the involvement of animals in certain
cultural phenomena, such as the festival when the Romans honor geese

 NA .; .; ., ; ., ; .; ., ; ., , , , , ; .; ., ; ..
 For more metamorphoses, see NA .; .; .; ., , ; ..
 Animals, divinity, and myth
for their role in saving the temple of Jupiter (., see Chapter ) or the
Mysian story of the Ophiogeneis, or “Snake-born” people, the offspring of
the coupling of Halia, daughter of Sybaris, and a giant snake in the grove
of Artemis in Phrygia (.).
Given that so much of the NA focuses on the moral superiority of
animals to humans, it is not surprising that such a prominent place in the
work is given to the religious piety of animals, which by their example
demonstrate to humans how to respect divinity. Not only are animals
capable of recognizing sacrilege, as when a hawk once revealed a theft from
the temple of Apollo at Delphi (NA .), but they themselves actively take
the initiative in worshipping the gods. I have already briefly mentioned the
religious devotion of elephants towards Selene (.), but remarkable too
is the notice that flies miraculously absent themselves from the Olympian
games, crossing to the other bank of the Alpheios river and even refraining
from the carcasses of the sacrificial offerings (.) all out of reverence for
the god (αἰδοῖ τοῦ θεοῦ, .).
It is also to be expected that Aelian would provide notices of animals
that themselves receive worship as divinities from humans, a practice
that became a part of the ethnographic literary tradition with Herodotus’
treatment of the religious culture of Egypt (see Chapter ). Not all instances
of animal worship in the NA, however, are Egyptian. After a lengthy series
of notices concerning animal worship in Egypt, Aelian finally tells us that
the inhabitants of Thebes in Greece worship a marten (galê), which was
said to have been the nurse of Herakles or at least the catalyst of the hero’s
birth when his mother Alkmene was in labor (NA .). In the same notice
we also learn that the inhabitants of Hamaxitos in the Troad worship mice,
hence the origins of Sminthian Apollo. Elsewhere, Aelian even mentions
the sacred eel that dwells in the river Arethusa (.). Aelian’s point in these
notices is to counter Greek cultural condescension. If by worshipping
animals the Egyptians become a source of ridicule for Greeks (γέλωτα
ὀφλισκάνουσι, .), then Aelian’s notices of animal worship among the
Greeks reveal the Greeks themselves to be at least partially ridiculous
according to their own cultural standards (see Chapter ).
Finally, the relationship between divinity and animals may be described
on the basis of sympathy or antipathy. Sympathetic relationships seem to
be specific to the waxing and waning of the goddess Selene. The waning of
the moon, for example, weakens shellfish and crustaceans (NA .); when
 Cf. Str. ...
 NA ., ; .; ., ; .; ., ; ., , ; .; .; ., ; ., .
 NA .; .; ., , , , , ; ., , ; ., , ; ..
 Animals and divinity 
the moon is in eclipse, the ibis closes its eyes (.); puppies gain their
eyesight with the appearance of the moon (.); and the phusa fish in
Egypt grow and shrink according to the movement of Selene (.). More
common is antipathy, as, for example, between Sarapis/Zeus and the ass
(.) or between Artemis Rhokkaia and dogs (., .).
The cast of gods, goddesses, and heroes within the pages of the NA is
indeed diverse and varied. There is, however, a select group of divinities that
receive Aelian’s attention more than others. Those gods or goddesses with
five or more references in the NA are (in descending order of frequency):
Apollo (), Zeus (), Helios (), Selene (), Artemis (), Hera (),
Poseidon (), Aphrodite (), Athena (), Asklepios (), Demeter (), Isis
(), and Sarapis (). Dionysus, Ares, and Hermes also appear in the NA,
though less frequently. The frequent appearance of Isis and Sarapis should
not come as a surprise, given Aelian’s interest in all things Egyptian, and I
discuss their overall significance to the NA in Chapter . For the moment,
though, it is relevant to note that their prominence in the collection should
be contextualized within the contemporary interest in Eastern cults of
healing and salvation, to which the prominence of Asklepios may also be
ascribed. Such cults were important not just to Aelian but also to the
larger religious landscape of his world. At one point, Aelian tells the story
of Asklepios’ resurrection of a woman accidentally killed at the hands of
his priests in Epidauros; it is one of the most vivid and frightening episodes
in the entire collection (NA .). In that narrative, Aelian even appeals to
Asklepios directly as “king and most devoted of all gods to humankind”
(βασιλεῦ καὶ θεῶν φιλανθρωπότατε, NA ., p. , line ), devotional
language suggesting perhaps that Aelian even had some special relationship
to the god of healing.
More noteworthy, though, is the prominence of Helios in the collection.
The ten appearances of the god that I have tabulated (third only to Apollo

 NA .; ., ; ., ; .; .; ., ; ., .
 Apollo: NA ., ; ., ; ., ; ., , , ; ., , , , , ; ., , , ; .; ..
Zeus: NA ., ., ., , ; .; .; .; .; ., ; ., ; .. Helios: NA .;
.; .; ., , ; .; .; ., . Selene: NA ., ; .; .; ., ; .; ., .
Artemis: NA .; .; .; ., , , ; .. Hera: NA .; .; .; ., , , ; ..
Poseidon: NA .; ., ; ., , ; .. Aphrodite: NA .; ., , , ; .. Athena:
NA .; .; .; ., ; .. Asklepios: .; .; .; .; .. Demeter: NA ., ;
., ; .. Isis: NA ., , , , . Sarapis: NA .; ., , , .
 Ares: ., .. Dionysus: ., ., ., .. Hermes: ., ., ..
 Kindstrand : . Cf. Aristid. Or. . Keil (Sacred Tales . Behr), where Isis, Sarapis, and
Asklepios appear together in one of Aristides’ visions. On the conflation of Sarapis and Asklepios,
see Alvar Ezquerra : –. For the representation of Asklepios in Aelian’s lost works, see frs.
– Hercher, – Domingo-Forasté.
 Animals, divinity, and myth
and Zeus) is actually a conservative number, for Aelian emphasizes the
power of the sun throughout the NA without necessarily employing the
god’s proper name. It is safe to say that the divine, generative power of
the sun permeates Aelian’s meditations on the world of animals. This must
be due at least in part to the contemporary popularity of Sol/Helios at Rome
brought about by Julia Domna’s connection to the solar cult of Elagabal in
her native Emesa. Though the god’s solar quality was well established by
the third century ce, he was not originally a sun god. The Semitic name
of the deity ’LH’GBL (Elahagabal) contains the words for “god” (’LH’)
and “mountain” or “creator,” from the verb “to form” (GBL). The god’s
association with the sun may have come about in earlier times through
the family name of the Emesene dynasts, Sampsigeramus, the first element
of which alludes to the sun in the Semitic languages (cf. Akkadian šamaš,
Hebrew šemeš, Arabic šams, and Syriac šemšâ), or through the perceived
similarity of the first part of the god’s name ’LH’ (Elaha) to the Greek word
for sun (hêlios). In any case, for Aelian and other Romans of the early third
century ce, Elagabal was unquestionably a solar deity, and his connection
to the Severi through Julia Domna sparked renewed interest in the sun god
generally. Sol/Helios had been associated with earlier emperors (notably
Augustus, Nero, and Commodus), which created for the Severi a sense of
religious continuity with Rome’s past sovereigns. The prominence of the
sun god in Rome reached its apex of course during the reign of Caracalla’s
successor, Varius Avitus, grand-nephew of Julia Domna and heir to her
family’s ancestral priesthood of Elagabal at Emesa. Elagabalus, as he came
to be known, installed his native deity’s conical black stone with all pomp
and circumstance in Rome and even came to self-identify with the god. But
the Syrian god was worshipped in Rome before Elagabalus came to power,
as Septimius Severus and Caracalla established his cult in the Syrian temple
in Trastevere with Julius Balbillus as his priest. The emperor Elagabalus’
downfall was due in part to his transgressive religious innovation when
he insisted that his own godhead be worshipped exclusively in Rome
and decreed that all other gods – even Jupiter Optimus Maximus of the
Capitol – were subordinate to his own divinity. Though his obsession
with the sun god had disastrous consequences for the emperor Elagabalus,
 See Hitti :  n. ; Altheim and Stiehl : –; Starcky –; Millar : ; Frey
: –; Millar : –; Birley : –; Swain :  n. ; Butcher ; Levick
: –; and Whitmarsh : –.
 Levick : .  Arrizabalaga y Prado : ; see also LTUR ..
 See Frey  and Arrizabalaga y Prado . Morgan  recognizes two factions among adherents
to the cult of Emesa: fundamentalists such as Elagabalus and moderates like Julia Domna who sought
to incorporate the ancestral deity within the larger religious culture of the empire.
 Myth 
Sol/Helios would nevertheless remain an important deity in Rome through
the third century, his popularity culminating in Aurelian’s massive, opulent
temple to Sol, dedicated in . Even in the fourth century Helios retains
his ties to imperial power: before his adoption of Christianity, Constantine
was a devotee of the sun god, and Helios was central to the religious
thought of the Emperor Julian. Despite the political antipathy that Aelian
harbored against Elagabalus and articulated in his Indictment of the Little
Woman, the NA offers abundant evidence of his own reverence, typical of
the age, for the transcendent, divine power of the sun.

Myth
Relevant to the varied representation of the divine in the NA is Aelian’s
engagement with myth and mythmaking. It is tempting, given the notice
in the Souda that Aelian held a position as high priest, to consider the
NA as the work of a high priest and therefore to read the text as a sincere
expression of Aelian’s religious piety. But this biographically based approach
is too speculative; the NA nowhere explicitly discusses the author’s role as
high priest, and without the notice in the Souda we would have no evidence
whatsoever concerning Aelian’s real-life activities as a priest. What we do
have is an extravagant literary depiction of divinity, hence my focus in
this chapter on myth, or divinity insofar as it is mediated through literary
narrative.
I want to stress at the outset that a literary approach to understanding
religious thought in the NA should not be construed as a concession to
traditional criticisms, cited by Denis Feeney, that Roman muthopoiêsis
was deficient for its artificiality, that it was “derivative and parasitic, a
borrowing from a more creative foreign culture in order to make up for
something naturally missing.” Aelian could from this traditional point of
view be considered as representative of the worst in Roman mythmaking:
the writer from Praeneste was a mere compiler, with not a whit of originality,
illustrative of how far the religious culture of Imperial Rome was from the
putatively natural, communal font of myth that characterized the Greek
Classical period. Even a scholar generally appreciative of Aelian’s literary
art such as Kindstrand tends to judge Aelian based upon this originary
model. Surveying Aelian’s Nachleben and frustrated by the lack of explicit
citations to him in later authors, Kindstrand finds fault first and foremost
with Aelian himself, “da, wie wir schon sahen, Aelian keineswegs originell

 Feeney : .

 Animals, divinity, and myth
ist.” Though I am sympathetic to the difficulties for Quellenforschung
posed by Aelian and his apparent imitators, I strenuously disagree with the
interpretation that Aelian is wholly derivative and lacking in originality. We
fail to understand Aelian fully if we think of him as a mere compiler, entirely
passive and receptive of the literary tradition that preceded him. Consider
the spoudê (zeal, energy, labor, studium) with which he characterizes his
work as a whole. The NA is, if anything, an elaborate display of the
meaningful recombination and transformation of material from seemingly
disparate cultural traditions. Consequently, the originary model of myth
criticized by Feeney is equally inadequate in accounting for the culturally
varied myths with which Aelian populates the NA. We do Aelian a discredit,
in other words, if we judge him solely on the basis of his accidentally being
born too late and at too great a distance from a falsely imagined golden age
of Greek mythical thinking. Aelian even pleads with his readers explicitly
not to let his allotted place in history detract from his praise (NA pr.,
line ).
Moreover, the slippery, shifting Aelian that emerges from his surviving
texts – Greek? Roman? Slave? Citizen? Elite insider? Intellectual renegade? –
has perhaps more in common with those of the fertile “contact zone” of
the third century bce, the “first interstitial generations” of Roman writers
who appeared in the wake of the wars between Carthage and Rome. It
is, I suggest, more productive to bear in mind Aelian’s intellectual similar-
ity to men like Naevius, Ennius, Plautus, Statius Caecilius, and Terence,
“tri-lingual semigraeci” who “explored the crevices between the compet-
ing cultures of central and southern Italy.” Like those writers, Aelian
embraces the interpenetration of different cultural and religious traditions
and has more of the “mobile sensibility” described by Niall Slater, accord-
ing to which, “One understands the thought of another not as a percep-
tion of truth but rather as an ideological, therefore constructed, therefore
manipulable system.” Myth for Aelian, then, was not the slavish copy-
ing down of an alien tradition, but a creative act of manipulation and
assimilation.
Just as, in the previous chapter, I rejected the notion that the NA repre-
sents a single, unified philosophical doctrine and favored a reading of the
collection as philosophically experimental, exploring, and improvisatory,
so here I reject the notion that myths in the NA represent a unified,
dogmatic religious attitude. On the contrary, the religious outlook of any
single chapter in the NA must be considered first within its immediate

 Kindstrand : .  Feeney : .  Ibid.  Slater : .
 Myth 
context. As has been seen so far, in any interpretative approach to the NA
one finds consistencies but also certain contradictions from fragment to
fragment, and it must be conceded that Aelian’s religious attitude too is
mutable and shifting depending on its context. If we are to make sense
at all of the religious meaning in the text, then that meaning will only
arise through a dialogic interchange among the various religious positions
within the text. As Feeney writes, “Meaning is produced by dialogue at
every level, and the search for a single, monolithic meaning-system can only
proceed at the expense of smothering this ubiquitous dialogic activity.”
Furthermore, the very structure of this particular text militates against
the idea that religious meaning will be univocal and stable. In fact, as I
argue here and in the following chapter, the ambiguity and indeterminacy
regarding the divine in the NA arises from the historical background in
which Aelian was writing, when the role of culturally specific religious phe-
nomena (Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Indian, Syrian) was being
redefined and renegotiated by intellectuals and writers from across the
empire.
Despite the significant amount of apparently fabulous narratives in the
NA, myth nevertheless seems to be a source of anxiety for Aelian. Myth,
after all, was traditionally conceived as being in opposition to truth, and
in the putative debate between truth and fiction, truth of course nearly
always gets the upper hand. But the following examples clearly indicate
that for Aelian “truth” is judged according to different criteria in different
contexts:
. In the lengthy discourse on performing elephants that I discussed in
Chapter , Aelian declares that the Roman setting, as opposed to some
alternative exotic setting, is what validates his story (NA ., p. ,
lines –). But this statement also implies that merely by a shift of
geographic setting truth may be suddenly redefined as myth. Truth
is therefore not an objective “reality” but a contingent and relative
evaluation.
. Regarding the metamorphosis of aging storks into human form, a
reward for their filial piety, Aelian assesses the reliability of his source,
Alexander of Mundos: “And I don’t think it’s a myth. Or else why
would Alexander even want to tell such marvels when he had nothing
to gain? And besides, it would not even be suitable for a man of
understanding to fashion a lie instead of the truth, not even for the
greatest profit, not at all at any rate for one who is about to succumb

 Feeney : , following Kramer : .  Kindstrand : .
 Animals, divinity, and myth
to an opponent’s grips that are most unprofitable for such lies” (καὶ
οὔ μοι δοκεῖ μῦθος εἶναι. ἢ τί καὶ βουλόμενος ὁ ᾿Αλέξανδρος τοῦτο
ἂν ἐτερατεύσατο κερδαίνων μηδέν; ἄλλως τε οὐδ’ ἂν ἔπρεπεν ἀνδρὶ
συνετῷ πρὸ τῆς ἀληθείας ποιήσασθαι τὸ ψεῦδος, οὐδὲ ἐπὶ κέρδει τῷ
μεγίστῳ, μή τι γοῦν εἰς λαβὰς ἐμπεσουμένῳ τὰς ὑπὲρ τῶν τοιούτων
ἀκερδεστάτας, NA ., p. , lines –). Here, what guarantees
the truth of the story for Aelian is the disinterestedness of his source:
Alexander of Mundos has nothing to gain from fabricating the story.
For that reason it is completely plausible that aging storks assume
human form on the islands of Ocean.
. Confronting the disbelief of his critics concerning the naturally respect-
ful behavior of elephants toward their elders, Aelian writes, “But per-
haps I seem to be telling a myth, gentlemen, to you who are artificers
(if I should wish to speak the truth) and fabricators of myths and the
unbelievable” (NA ., p. , lines –). In this context, only those
who do not deal in lies will recognize the truth of Aelian’s narrative.
Mythmaking is here characterized as unethical. The reader’s suspicion
about the truth-value of the story automatically impugns his or her
own relationship to the truth.
. When discussing the immortality of the ibis, Aelian writes, “I too
have said that it is the creature with the longest life. But Apion says
that the ibis is immortal and he provides as witnesses the priests at
Hermopolis who have shown it to him. Even to him this seems far
from the truth, and to me it would seem to be completely false”
(NA ., p. , lines –). In this fascinating passage, Aelian
follows the example of his source, Apion, who in one clause freely per-
petuates the myth of the immortality of the ibis (λέγει δὲ ᾿Απίων), even
offering the authoritative evidence of the priests. In the next clause,
however, Apion suddenly redraws the boundaries between what is
true and false (τοῦτο μὲν οὖν καὶ ἐκείνῳ δοκεῖ τῆς ἀληθείας ἀφεστά-
ναι πάμπολυ), thereby distancing himself from the Egyptian priests,
whose authority was formerly presumed but now invalidated. Aelian
unquestioningly sides with Apion.
. After a lengthy discourse on the Egyptian worship of the Apis bull,
Aelian introduces an explanation that the cult resulted from the reli-
gious manipulations of king Menis: “But the sort of things that Egyp-
tians who write about animals turn into a mythology (μυθολογίαν)
about this creature – I don’t think that these sorts of things are wel-
come in this, the true property of animals (τῇδε τῇ περὶ τῶν ζῴων
 Myth 
ἀληθείᾳ καὶ ἰδιότητι)” (NA ., p. , lines –). In a surprising
reversal, Aelian therefore rejects as inappropriate mythology the ratio-
nalizing account concerning king Menis. The elaborate rites and beliefs
concerning the Apis bull are, by contrast, aligned with the literary truth
of Aelian’s text.
. Finally, reasserting his own authorial reliability, Aelian writes in the
epilogue to the NA that, “I myself was unable to form creatures other
than what are, but I have shown that I have become familiar with
many creatures. And yet I said some things of which no one else spoke,
who at any rate has attempted this. But the truth is dear to me, both
elsewhere and here not least of all” (NA ep., p. , lines –). Aelian’s
meaning is opaque: he has not invented any of the animals that he
has discussed, but he has also offered things that his peers have not.
Lest the reader think, however, that by this statement Aelian has
implied that he has fabricated any of his material, he holds up like
a talisman the now familiar claim that truth is dear to him (φίλη δὲ
ἡ ἀλήθειά μοι), reassuring his critics that he is operating within an
established system of truth.
Myth, understood as fictitious storytelling, would, therefore, seem to
have no place in the NA. Yet the frequent incorporation of myth into
the NA cannot be denied: Aelian may apologize for expounding upon
the mythological origins of Sminthian Apollo, but he also concedes that
“we are not worse off for listening to this too” (χείρους δὲ αὑτῶν οὐ
γεγόναμεν καὶ τοιαῦτα προσακούσαντες, NA ., p. , lines –),
and in the lengthy discourse on the shellfish known as the nêritês, Aelian
concedes further that, “to tell a few short myths in the midst of a lengthy
collection is merely to relieve the listening and to inject some pleasure
into the discourse” (καὶ μέντοι καὶ διαμυθολογῆσαι μικρὰ ἄττα ἐν μακρᾷ
τῇ συγγραφῇ οὐδὲν ἀλλ’ ἢ διαναπαῦσαί τε τὴν ἀκοὴν καὶ ἐφηδῦναι τὸν
λόγον, ., p. , lines –). The evaluation of myth as a literary mode
that is somehow unserious and therefore juvenile, geared more toward
pleasure than elevated intellectual pursuits, and outside of the established
program of truth is echoed in the contemporary rhetorical textbooks. Myth
 A difficult passage. Hercher deleted altogether the phrase τῇδε τῇ περὶ τῶν ζῴων ἀληθείᾳ καὶ
ἰδιότητι, but GLR are surely right to restore it to the text, as it is attested in all the surviving
manuscripts, with only slight variation. I take the phrase as dependent on φίλα in the main clause.
The significant hyperbaton separating this phrase from the main clause, as well as separating the
nominative phrase οἱ τὰ περὶ τῶν ζῴων γράψαντες from the preceding subordinate clause to which
it clearly belongs, seems to have been part of Aelian’s rhetorical patterning of the sentence.
 On the negative attitude toward myth in the NA, see Kindstrand : –.
 Animals, divinity, and myth
is, according to the Progumnasmata attributed to Hermogenes (second
century ce), a suitable entrée to rhetorical training for young students,
“because it can order their souls for the better,” but it is interesting to note
here that it was considered completely appropriate for a myth to be false
(ψευδῆ), so long as it was useful (χρήσιμον) for some part of life (.–). If
myth is a suitable pedagogic medium for the young, then it is assumed that
more mature intellectuals would look down on myth as childish. Against
this background, Aelian’s defensiveness seems understandable.
Helpful in making sense of Aelian’s varied strategies of truth and his
changing, contradictory attitudes toward myth is the theoretical model
advanced by Paul Veyne, who reminds us forcefully that truth itself is
socially constructed. “[I]t is we,” Veyne writes, “who fabricate our truths,
and it is not ‘reality’ that makes us believe. For ‘reality’ is the child of the
constitutive imagination of our tribe. If it were otherwise, the quasi-totality
of universal culture would be inexplicable – mythologies, doctrines, phar-
macopoeias, false and spurious sentences.” Given that Aelian is himself
very much interested in representing the “quasi-totality of universal cul-
ture,” at least as far as it concerns animal lore, it is to be expected that the NA
would appeal to various systems of truth. One of the merits of this protean
text is precisely its rejection of a single, overarching “master discourse”
and its embrace of multiple ways of conceiving what is true, acceptable,
and believable. Looked at in this way, there is ample room for creativity
and inventiveness in the NA, and Aelian must simply avoid appearing as a
forger too obviously fraudulent in his creativity. Veyne’s piscine metaphor
is apt: “A forger is a fish who, for reasons of temperament, has ended up in
the wrong bowl. His scientific imagination follows myths no longer found
on the program.” Aelian, it is safe to say, whatever fabrications he has
allowed himself, strove to swim in the same bowl as his sophistic peers in
Rome; he wanted the NA to be read and appreciated as a serious work of
art.
I therefore understand Aelian’s muthopoiêsis in the NA as the plausi-
ble assimilation and transformation of traditional material as a means of
creating narratives about divinity that are meaningful in Severan Rome
and relevant to that historical context. To show specifically how Aelian’s
muthopoiêsis engages with the contemporary discourse on divinity in ways
that are subtle and sophisticated, I turn now to an analysis of two elaborate
narratives from the NA: the tale of Herakleı̈s and the stork and the tale of
Pindos and the snake.

 Kennedy : –.  Veyne : .  Feeney : .  Veyne : .
 The widow of Tarentum 

The widow of Tarentum

This story begins in a straightforward manner, as Aelian declares that his
theme will be that animals are able to remember a favor (kharis). He then
launches into his story, but without any reference to sources – in fact the
whole of the narrative is told as if from Aelian’s own imagination, without
a single “they say” and without any appeal to the authority of some prior
logos:
ἐν Τάραντι γίνεται γυνὴ τά τε ἄλλα σπουδῆς ἀξία καὶ οὖν καὶ σώφρων
πρὸς τὸν ἄνδρα· ῾Ηρακληὶς ὄνομα αὐτῇ. περιεῖπε μὲν οὖν ζῶντα τὸν
γεγαμηκότα εὖ μάλα κηδεμονικῶς· ἐπεὶ δὲ τὸν βίον οὗτος κατέστρεψε,
τὰς ἀστικὰς ἡ προειρημένη γυνὴ μισεῖ διατριβὰς καὶ τὴν οἰκίαν, ἐν ᾗ τὸν
ἄνδρα νεκρὸν ἐθεάσατο, καὶ ὡς εἶχε λύπης ἐς τοὺς τάφους μετοικίζεται,
καὶ τοῖς ἠρίοις τοῦ ποτε ἀνδρὸς τλημόνως παρέμεινε, πιστὴν ἑαυτὴν καὶ
σώφρονα τῷ κατὰ γῆς ὄντι ἀποφαίνουσα. (NA ., p. , line –p. ,
line )
In Tarentum there was a wife who was both in other ways worthy of attention
and especially virtuous regarding her husband. Her name was Herakleı̈s. She
used to treat the man who married her, when he was alive, with the utmost
care. But when he died, the aforementioned wife began to hate her life in
town and the house in which she beheld her husband as a corpse, and since
she was full of grief, she moved into his tomb, and she remained steadfastly
at the grave of her one-time husband, showing herself loyal and virtuous to
the one beneath the earth.
Aelian’s introduction obviously evokes the introduction of Eumolpus’ tale
of the Widow of Ephesus from Petronius’ Satyrica:
matrona quaedam Ephesi tam notae erat pudicitiae, ut vicinarum quoque
gentium feminas ad spectaculum sui evocaret. haec ergo cum virum extulis-
set, non contenta vulgari more funus passis prosequi crinibus aut nudatum
pectus in conspectu frequentiae plangere, in conditorium etiam prosecuta
est defunctum, positumque in hypogaeo Graeco more corpus custodire ac
flere totis noctibus diebusque coepit . . . una igitur in tota civitate fabula
erat, solum illud affulsisse verum pudicitiae amorisque exemplum omnis
ordinis homines confitebantur. (Petr. .–)
A certain wife in Ephesus was so famously virtuous, that she drew the women
even of neighboring populations to look upon her. This woman therefore,
when she brought out her husband for burial, not content to follow the
funeral procession in the common manner with her hair undone or beating
her naked breast in view of the crowd, followed the dead man even into
the tomb, and she began to watch over the body, placed in the earth in the
Greek manner, and to weep day and night . . . Thus there was just one story
 Animals, divinity, and myth
in the whole city: men of every rank were confessing that that alone blazed
forth as the true example of virtue and love.
It is well known that Petronius himself may have borrowed the tale from
a now lost Greek literary source or from the folkloric tradition. There
are, however, significant clues in Aelian’s narrative that point directly to
Petronius’ text. Apart from the obvious similarity between several of the
details in each version, even one noteworthy difference in Aelian turns out
in fact to be a sophisticated allusion to the Satyrica. Aelian has transferred
the setting of his story from Ephesus to Tarentum, a shift that subtly
highlights the original narrative setting of the Petronian tale: Eumolpus
tells the story to his fellow travelers aboard a ship bound for Tarentum.
But whereas the Petronian tale goes on to illustrate “the inconstancy of
women . . . how easily they fall in love, how quickly they forget even their
children, that there is no woman so chaste that she might not be driven
to madness by lust for a stranger” (muliebrem levitatem . . . quam facile
adamarent, quam cito etiam filiorum obliviscerentur, nullamque esse feminam
tam pudicam, quae non peregrina libidine usque ad furorem averteretur,
.), Aelian’s tale deviates significantly from its source material.
It happened to be summer, the season when young storks were making
their first attempt at flight. One stork, however, was still not strong enough
for flight and fell from the sky, injuring his legs. Noticing the stork’s fall,
the faithful widow went to its assistance and proceeded to tend to its legs
and gradually to nourish it back to health. Over time it grew strong enough
for her to release it, and the stork “by some natural and wondrous act of
thought” (ἐννοίᾳ τινὶ φυσικῇ καὶ θαυμαστῇ, NA ., p. , line ) knew
that it was indebted to the widow.
The following year, we find the widow “warming herself in the sun, when
spring was beginning to shine” (ἦρος ὑπολάμποντος ἐν ἡλίῳ θερομένη, NA
., p. , line ), when the same stork suddenly reappears, opens its
beak wide, vomits forth a stone into Herakleı̈s’ lap, and flies away to rest
atop the widow’s roof. Herakleı̈s is at first startled and confused, but she
then deposits the strange stone inside her house. That night, however, she
is roused from sleep and “she saw a beam of light and a radiance shooting
forth, and the house was lit up as if a torch had been brought in; so
intense indeed was the light that was emanating and that was produced
from the nugget, and it was greatly revered” (ὁρᾷ αὐγήν τινα καὶ αἴγλην

 The story is also told by Phaedrus, Fabularum Appendix . On Greek antecedents, see Walsh :
 and Huber-Rebenich .
 Petr. ..
 The widow of Tarentum 
ἀφιεῖσαν, καὶ κατελάμπετο ὁ οἶκος ὡς ἐσκομισθείσης δᾳδός· τοσοῦτον ἄρα
ἐκ τῆς βώλου τὸ σέλας ἀνῄει τε καὶ ἐτίκτετο καὶ μέγα τίμιος, lines –).
Grabbing hold of the stork (which apparently had never left the woman’s
roof ), she recognized the scar and knew that this was the very creature that
she had nursed. At this point, Aelian’s tale ends abruptly.
The story of Herakleı̈s turns out to be very different from Petronius’
story of the widow of Ephesus, despite their parallel beginnings, as Aelian’s
narrative rejects the Petronian parody of feminine virtue and instead ide-
alizes the reciprocity of kharis between Herakleı̈s and the stork. I suggest
further that the distinctly more solemn, moralizing tone of Aelian’s nar-
rative is achieved through a series of details that are either explicitly or
implicitly associated with divinity. First, and most obviously, the protago-
nist of Aelian’s narrative is named after Herakles, the divine son of Zeus
and, according to one legend, the founder of Tarentum, the heroine’s native
city. Second, and more subtly, there are several references to the sun god
Helios, newly relevant in the Severan age because of Julia Domna’s connec-
tion to the solar cult of Elagabal at Emesa (see above). Not only does Aelian
offer an image of Herakleı̈s warming herself in the heat of the springtime
sun, but the light radiating from the mysterious stone at night is described
in terms that regularly denote the light of the sun (αὐγήν, αἴγλην, NA .,
p. , line ). Aelian’s narrative is suffused with the heavenly power of
Helios.
Thirdly, the luminous stone itself connotes divinity. Though Aelian
does not name the type of stone, it must be lukhnis or lukhnitês, and it
is clear that Aelian is blending two traditions: (a) the stone’s association
with the cult statue of Atargatis in the Syrian city of Hierapolis Bambuke
and (b) the stone’s association with the stork. Describing the cult statue
of Atargatis, or Assyrian Hera, Lucian writes, “She bears a stone in her
head; it is called lukhnis, and its name arises from what it does. For out
of this at night abundant light shines, and from it the whole temple too
glows as if from lamps” (λίθον ἐπὶ τῇ κεφαλῇ φορέει· λυχνὶς καλέεται,
οὔνομα δὲ οἱ τοῦ ἔργου ἡ συντυχίη. ἀπὸ τούτου ἐν νυκτὶ σέλας πολλὸν
ἀπολάμπεται, ὑπὸ δέ οἱ καὶ ὁ νηὸς ἅπας οἷον ὑπὸ λύχνοισι φαείνεται, Luc.
Syr.D. ). The similarities with Aelian’s description of the stone are clear
enough, but that Aelian was familiar with Lucian’s work is corroborated by
a further passage in the NA, describing the sacred fish in the sanctuary at
Hieropolis (NA .=Luc. Syr.D. ). Philostratus, in the Life of Apollonios

 Verg. A. ..  King : –.

 On the lukhnis in Lucian’s text, see Lightfoot : –.
 Animals, divinity, and myth
of Tyana, preserves the second tradition associated with the stone: in a
passage discussing the instinctive care that animals have for their young,
Apollonios cites the practice of storks, who embed the lukhnitês (λυχνίτης)
stone into their nests to protect their young from snakes (VA .). Aelian
therefore depicts the stork bestowing a gift that would be appropriate for
it to possess, but that would also express the divine power of the Syrian
goddess.
Aelian’s narrative manipulates Petronius’ short story by redirecting it
away from sexual impropriety and the appetites of the body and trans-
forming it instead into a chaste tale permeated with the mysterious power
of the divine. The fact that divinity is here conveyed through the agency
of the stork is consistent with Aelian’s overall appreciation of the religious
significance of animals. Whereas Petronius’ widow of Ephesus yields to her
physical hunger for food and to her sexual desire for the soldier (Petr. .–
.), Aelian’s widow of Tarentum shifts her focus away from her dead
husband only out of concern for the wounded stork and she is depicted as
receiving nourishment only from the immaterial light of the sun. In other
words, Aelian’s narrative represents a resublimation of the constellation of
themes (death, the tomb, rejuvenation, sex, food and drink) that Petronius
had earlier parodied and brought down to the level of real life. Aelian
corroborates Bakhtin’s characterization of these same themes (a “folkloric
complex” prior to novelistic discourse) as taking on mystical form in the
cults from the East during the Hellenistic period:
In the cultic redaction all elements of the complex appear not in a real but
in a sublimated form, and are linked with one another not via a real-life
narrative, but through mystic-symbolic links and interrelationships, and the
triumph of life over death (resurrection) is accomplished not on a real and
earthly plane but on a mystical one. What is more, there is a complete
absence of laughter, and copulation has been sublimated almost beyond
recognition.
Aelian’s artistic representation, however, opens up the possibility for subtle
ambiguities. If we accept Bakhtin’s assertion that in the cultic narrative
explicit sexuality is “sublimated almost beyond recognition,” then it is
 Aelian’s scene of the house suddenly and miraculously illuminated in the dead of night is echoed
in a much later Greek text, the Byzantine epic Digenes Akrites, where it is described explicitly as
a Syrian religious miracle: Εἶδες θαῦμα παράδοξον πῶς, τῆς νυκτὸς παρούσης | καὶ φωτὸς μὴ
ὑπάρχοντος, φέγγος ἦλθεν ἐξ ὕψους | καὶ ἀπορρήτως ἔπλησε φωτὸς τὸν ὅλον οἶκον; (.– in
the Grottaferrata version).
 Auerbach : –; Sullivan ; Bakhtin : –; Conte : –; and McGlathery
: –. This reading is problematized by Rimell : –.
 Bakhtin : .
 Pindos and the snake 
worth noting that sexuality per se is not absolutely eradicated. We should
remember that, for as much as Petronius’ tale of the widow of Ephesus
depicts a fictional world in which the prerogative of the woman is in
the ascendant, it is narrated as a negative example of female behavior,
prompting a blush from its female audient and the indignant response of
her husband (Petr. .). Aelian’s widow, by contrast, retains her sôphrosynê,
not just for her elaborate grief over the death of her husband, but also for
the kharis that she shows the injured stork. But beneath Herakleı̈s’ evident
chastity and decency, there simmer the same desires of the female body that
Petronius exploited to invite patriarchal scorn. Aelian’s story points to the
ways in which those desires were positively incorporated by an alternative
symbolic system and it attempts to assimilate that system to a familiar
Greco-Roman narrative.
If the luminous stone that was dropped into Herakleı̈s’ lap evokes the
cult statue of Assyrian Hera, then it also evokes the other sensuous details
of the goddess’ sanctuary that Lucian describes in the De dea Syria. We
hear of the unbridled sexual desire between women and eunuchs (Luc.
Syr.D. ), the giant phalloi of Dionysus (), not to mention the intense
erotic passions of the Assyrian queen Stratonike, who founded the temple
and whose story is the narrative centerpiece of Lucian’s essay (–). Of
course these overtly sexual elements are only obliquely hinted at in Aelian’s
allusive myth. But they are there nonetheless, sublimated into the realm
of religious symbolism. Thus, when we witness Herakleı̈s warming herself
in the sun (ἐν ἡλίῳ θερομένη, NA ., p. , line ), the sensuousness
of that act is hardly transgressive, though the mischievous reader might
wonder why this exemplary widow of Tarentum never moved back into
the tomb with her husband’s corpse, and why she has resumed residence in
the house that she formerly hated (οἶκος, line ). But Aelian’s mysterious
narrative neutralizes such suspicions. In this sophisticated Italian myth
that assimilates Syrian religious imagery, the satisfaction of bodily desires
is stylized in ways that are sanctioned by divinity.

Pindos and the snake

The tale of Pindos, one of the longest narratives in the NA, is concerned
with a theme that was broadly relevant to Roman religious thinking during
the Imperial period, namely the permeability of the boundary between
mortal and divine. As with the tale of Herakleı̈s, Aelian does not cite any

 Doody : .

 Animals, divinity, and myth
literary sources. We learn that Pindos is the grandson of the Emathian
king Lukaon, and the son of Makedon, who would one day give his name
to the Macedonians. Pindos was a beautiful young man who inspired the
envy and hatred of his brothers, and their conspiring against him led him
to become a refugee living in the countryside. One day while hunting, he
pursued a herd of fawns into a cave but was prevented from hunting them
by a mysterious voice that warned him not to touch the creatures. The next
day, Pindos returned to the site, not entering the cave, but curious about
the mysterious voice, and he encountered a giant snake. He offered the
snake some of the birds that he had with him, which the snake accepted,
and thereafter Pindos would repeat this ritual, offering up to the creature
the first fruits of his hunt. Pindos in turn became famous for his hunting,
attracting the attention not just of the local men and women, but also of
his envious brothers. Catching him alone by a river, his brothers ambush
and kill him, but the giant snake, hearing the cries of his friend, attacks
the brothers and avenges Pindos’ murder. The snake guards the corpse for
a time, but when it realizes that its presence frightens the locals, it retreats,
allowing the people to tend to Pindos’ body and provide him burial. Aelian
concludes the story by noting that the river took its name from the boy
who was buried beside it.
Like the story of Herakleı̈s and the stork, the tale of Pindos and the
snake is about the reciprocal kharis exhibited by members of different
species, and also like the earlier story, it is suffused with the presence of
the divine. Throughout the narrative, Aelian probes human engagement
with divinity, focusing provocatively on the boundary that supposedly
separates the two. Several passages establish this thematic background.
First, Aelian begins the story by sketching Pindos’ mythological genealogy,
reaching back two generations to Pindos’ grandfather: “Lukaon, the king
of Emathia, had a child” (Λυκάονι τῷ βασιλεῖ τῆς ᾿Ημαθίας γίνεται παῖς,
NA ., p. , line ). Making Lukaon the first word in the story is
thematically motivated. The mythographer Hyginus reminds us that when
Zeus once came as a guest to Lukaon’s home, “Lukaon’s sons wanted
to test if Zeus was a god” (Lycaonis filii Iouem tentare uoluerunt, deusne
esset, Hyg. Fab. ). They therefore prepared a meal of human flesh, but
when Zeus realized what was placed before him, he killed Lukaon’s sons
and transformed Lukaon himself into a wolf. Ovid’s version of the story
eliminates the role of Lukaon’s sons and makes Lukaon himself Jupiter’s
daring antagonist. Ovid even relates the story to Roman imperial politics:

 See Ogden : , .

 Pindos and the snake 
when the gods hear of Jupiter’s anger at the human race and Lukaon’s
transgression, they shout in support with all the mad enthusiasm of a
political faction: “no less pleasing to you, Augustus, was the pious fidelity
of your people than was that of the gods to Jupiter” (Ov. Met. .–
). Ovid’s comparison here of Augustus with Jupiter situates the story
of Lukaon within the poet’s larger exploration of Augustus’ own godlike
status as princeps. Aelian probably knew Ovid’s poem. By beginning the
story with Lukaon, a figure from myth who evokes animal metamorphosis,
Aelian ties the following narrative to the theriomorphic interests of the NA
generally. But the tradition about the ambiguous status of Zeus’ divinity
(is he or isn’t he?) and Lukaon’s transgressive testing of that divinity were
themes both relevant to the Roman imperial cult and suggestively explored
by Aelian in the story of Pindos.
Towards the climax of Aelian’s story, when Pindos has become a celebrity
for his successful exploits as a hunter, he attracts the erotic attention of the
local women:
καὶ ἐφοίτων ἐπὶ θύρας τὰς ἐκείνου οἷα δήπου βεβακχευμέναι ὅσον μέντοι
γυναικῶν ἦν χῆρον, αἵ γε μὴν συνοικοῦσαι τοῖς γεγαμηκόσι φρουρούμεναι
μὲν τῷ νόμῳ, τῷ κλέει δὲ τοῦ κάλλους τοῦ κατὰ τὸν Πίνδον δεδουλωμέναι
προυτίμων συνοικεῖν ἐκείνῳ ἢ θεαὶ γεγονέναι. (NA ., p. , lines –)
And they used to go his doorstep like Bacchants, as many, of course, who
were widows; nevertheless, those who were dwelling with their husbands,
kept in check by the law, but enslaved by the report of Pindos’ beauty, were
preferring to dwell with him rather than to become goddesses.

This fascinating passage plays with the boundaries between mortal and
divine in several ways. The detail of the widows’ paraklausithuron and
Aelian’s comparison of them to Bacchants evokes not just Dionysus’ divine
power of inverting social (as well as literary) conventions, but also Euripides’
Bakkhai, the paradigmatic literary depiction of the god’s epiphany. In that
play, of course, Dionysus explains at the outset that his motivation for
driving the Theban women from their households and overturning the
established order was his anger at Thebes’ refusal to accept his divinity:
“for this city must learn, even if it doesn’t want to, that it is uninitiated
in my Bacchic rites, that I am defending my mother Semele, appearing
to mortals as the divinity that my mother bore for Zeus” (E. Ba. –).
By depicting the unconventional behavior of the local widows who are
in love with Pindos and by comparing them explicitly with Dionysus’
frenzied Bacchants (βεβακχευμέναι, NA ., p. , line ), Aelian once
again recalls a mythological background in which divinity is contested and
 Animals, divinity, and myth
consequently proven. This background is further reinforced by Aelian’s
statement that the married women, though bound by convention to remain
at the sides of their husbands, preferred to live with Pindos “rather than to
become goddesses” (ἢ θεαὶ γεγονέναι, line ). Even if understood as an
unattainable wish, the statement is thematically linked to the narrative’s
overall exploration of the boundary between mortality and divinity.
Against this mythological background Aelian offers his depiction of
Pindos, the tale’s central character. From the beginning of the story, Pindos
is described in superlative terms and is contrasted sharply with his brothers,
not just for his physical beauty, but also for his manly courage, his virtue,
and his general prosperity (NA ., p. , lines –). Things become
even more prosperous after he enters into a tributary relationship with the
mysterious, giant snake:
ὑπήρχετο δὲ καὶ τὰ ἐκ τοῦ δαίμονος εὐθηνεῖσθαι τῷ Πίνδῳ, καὶ ὁσημέραι
χωρεῖν εἰς τὸ σοβαρώτερον· θηρῶντι γὰρ ἀπήντων εὐθηρίαι, ὅσαι τε τῶν
ἐν ταῖς ὕλαις ζῴων, τῶν τε ὀρνίθων ὅσαι. ἦν οὖν αὐτῷ καὶ περιβολή,
καὶ διεῖρπε μέντοι καὶ κλέος ὡς ὁμόσε τοῖς θηρίοις ἰόντος καὶ ἀτρέπτως
αἱροῦντος αὐτά· ἦν δὲ καὶ ἰδεῖν μέγας καὶ οἷος ἐκπλῆξαι τῷ τε ὄγκῳ τοῦ
σώματος καὶ τῇ εὐεξίᾳ προσέτι, τῇ δὲ ὥρᾳ τὸ θῆλυ πᾶν ἀνέφλεγε καὶ εἰς
ἑαυτὸν ἐξάπτων ἦν δῆλος. (NA ., p. , lines –)
And the things proceeding from the divinity too began to flourish for
Pindos, and daily to become more impressive. For when he hunted he met
with successes, both with woodland creatures and with birds. And so he had
also abundance, and his fame too spread, in the belief that where he went,
the wild animals went, and that he caught them without hesitation. And he
was also great to look upon and able to inspire awe both by the bulky frame
of his body and by his physical fitness besides, and because of his beauty he
began to ignite all the women and was clearly inflaming them to desire for
himself.
By “the things proceeding from the divinity” (τὰ ἐκ τοῦ δαίμονος), Aelian
surely must mean simply Pindos’ fortune or good luck, but the language
that Aelian uses to describe the situation establishes Pindos’ relationship
with the snake as the beginning of divine favor. And while the snake is
nowhere explicitly referred to as divine, it is implied that the disembodied
voice warning Pindos away from the fawns belongs to the snake, and
this protective attitude towards the fawns is remarkably similar to the
behavior of Apollo at his sanctuary Kourion on the island of Cyprus (NA
.). But the rich description of Pindos’ prosperity is tinged with hints

 Cf. Hld. ...  On a possible connection with Zeus Meilichios, see Ogden : –.
 Pindos and the snake 
of the excesses that will ultimately lead to his destruction. Pindos’ good
fortune is, for example, ambiguously said by the narrator “daily to become
more impressive” (ὁσημέραι χωρεῖν εἰς τὸ σοβαρώτερον, NA ., p. ,
line ), but the adjective σοβαρώτερον could be taken in its negative sense
as “more swaggering, pompous, or haughty.”
There is also the curiously expressed “abundance” (περιβολή, NA .,
p. , line ) that Pindos experiences. Contemporary educated readers
would recognize the word as a technical term from their rhetorical training.
The rhetorical theorist Hermogenes dedicates an entire chapter to peribolê,
but at its most basic, “Abundance (περιβολὴ) occurs whenever you add
something extraneous (ἔξωθέν) to the subject matter of the speech” (Her-
mog. Id. ..–). The effect is a defining feature of Demosthenes’ style,
and the great orator employed it, according to Hermogenes, to achieve
rhetorical grandeur (τὸ μέγεθος). It was also, according to Philostratus,
developed by Isocrates, the Roman-era sophist Niketes of Smyrna, and was
apparently still in vogue among Aelian’s contemporaries (VS  and ).
But despite the grandiose effect, the unavoidable fact is that peribolê is
by definition superfluous ornamentation, and the vanity of the rhetorical
device can be seen by the fact that “its opposite is rhetorical purity” (ἐναν-
τίον αὐτῇ ἡ καθαρότης, Hermog. Id. ..). Morally speaking, then, an
excessive use of peribolê could be construed as a dubious obstacle to clarity
and an unnecessary extravagance. In a curious linking of contemporary
rhetorical practice with religious thought, Aelian’s description of Pindos’
prosperity as a peribolê tinges his success with excess. Pindos’ divinely
endowed grandeur is reflected in his impressive bodily frame, but his mus-
cular physique and his kleos also inspire an erotic desire that subverts social
conventions and ultimately leads to his destruction at the hands of his
envious brothers.
Pindos’ divinely granted peribolê raises him dangerously close to the
level of divinity. Aelian’s emphasis on the young man’s massive physical
presence and the way in which he attracts the gaze of the local popu-
lation – women and men – figures Pindos as a kind of living statue, a
perfect object of popular adoration, in much the same way that the epony-
mous heroine of Chariton’s Kallirhoe is represented as a living Aphrodite.
Pindos, in other words, has as a living man achieved quasi-divine status.
Unlike Zeus or Dionysus, however, who proved their divinity when it
was contested, Pindos is proven to be mortal, despite his successes, fame,
and superlative beauty. Though he maintains his close relationship with

 LSJ σοβαρός II.  Egger : ; Hunter : ; and Smith : , –.
 Animals, divinity, and myth
the mysterious snake even after death, and though the river where he
was murdered is named after him, true immortality eludes Pindos. The
etiological notice with which Aelian concludes the narrative serves as a
reminder of the limited, partial ways in which mere mortals may achieve
immortality.
The story of Pindos and the snake would have had profound religious
relevance for Aelian’s readers. In Rome in the third century, the privi-
lege of becoming divine was reserved for the emperor alone – though
the extraordinary Julia Domna too was granted the title diva – and
indeed the contemporary discourse on the boundary between mortality
and divinity was focused on the imperial ruler cult. With the exception
of the usurpers Didius Julianus, Macrinus, and Diadumenius, all of the
emperors who reigned during the lifetime of Aelian were deified after
death, and Elagabalus was famously even treated as a god in his own life-
time. An emperor’s chances of becoming a god were by no means secure
merely by his taking the throne, but neither was divinity granted as a
kind of honorarium for the emperor’s good behavior: even the tyrants
Commodus and Caracalla received public worship as divi. In the private
sphere of the household, as well, the genius of the emperor received vener-
ation. The divinity of the emperor was, in other words, a pervasive aspect
of religious life and a subject of much discussion in Rome by the third
century.
Ittai Gradel is right to insist that it is anachronistic to impose a strict
distinction between religion and politics during this period. Thus, while
the religious worship of a human being might seem strange to us, in the
Rome of Aelian’s time the boundary between mortal and divine was seen in
relative terms. In a context as hierarchical as that of Rome’s during the reign
of the Severans, when society was organized according to relationships of
master/slave, patron/client, emperor/senate, the divine honors bestowed
upon an emperor – whether posthumously or even while alive – could be
seen as a logical extension of his secular honors. Temples, priests, priestesses,
ritual sacrifice, and the other trappings of divinity were, according to
Gradel, “ultimately an aspect of the honours-for-benefactions structure
found in all relationships between parties of vastly unequal power and
social standing in Roman society.” Gradel goes on to hypothesize that the
dividing line between man and god in Roman thought was not absolute
(i.e., divinity was not an essential, innate quality), but rather a stylization
of status distinction between two parties.

 Levick : –.  Gradel : .

 Pindos and the snake 
Be that as it may, Aelian’s narrative of the rise and fall of Pindos emerges
from a background of skepticism and doubt about the deification of mor-
tals. Seneca had long ago parodied the system in his Apocolocyntosis, and
by denying the “deified” Claudius the status of a true god, Seneca rein-
forced the notion of absolute divinity. Feeney is surely right that Seneca’s
satire showed emperor worship to be “a vigorous and muscular institution
which could provoke and sustain interrogation and debate . . . criticism and
testing was part of the apotheosis technique.” A century before Aelian,
Plutarch rejected outright the notion that a mortal man might be made
a god directly, asserting instead that “truly and according to right reason”
(ἀληθείᾳ καὶ κατὰ τὸν εἰκότα λόγον) souls must progress by stages, passing
first from being men (ἐκ μὲν ἀνθρώπων), to being heroes (ἥρωας), then
demigods (δαίμονας), and only then to becoming gods (θεούς). Plutarch
was responding to the story of the supposed apotheosis of Romulus, but
writing in the late first or early second century ce he was surely also
responding indirectly to the contemporary deification of Roman emper-
ors. But skepticism and doubt about emperor worship need not have arisen
solely from the literary or philosophical tradition. Aelian himself witnessed
how the murdered Caracalla achieved divine status as a hêrôs simply because
his successor Macrinus was eager to consolidate his authority with the army;
the measure was even ratified by the senate, despite their hatred of the dead
emperor. If Aelian had not already been skeptical of emperor worship,
such an event could only have inspired disillusion. Aelian was not alone:
Cassius Dio, too, wished for the imperial cult to be abolished or at least for
adulation of the emperor during life to return to the modesty of a previous
age, if we may read the lengthy speech of Maecenas before Octavian as
an articulation of Cassius Dio’s own political agenda (D.C. ..–.).
Furthermore, the young Elagabalus’ imposition of his own divinity was
surely a part of what motivated Aelian’s outrage that the emperor had “dis-
graced Roman affairs” (τὰ ῾Ρωμαίων ᾔσχυνε, Philostr. VS ). Finally, in
the generation following Aelian’s death, during a period of financial and
military crisis, the emperor Maximinus ordered as a dire cost-cutting mea-
sure that public honors cease to be paid to the divi. The episode attests
to the continued significance of the cult, but it also, as Gradel points out,
reveals that the deified emperors “were basically powerless, and the risk

 Sen. Apoc. .  Feeney : .  Plu. Rom. ..

 D.C. .., SHA, Caracalla ..
 See Bowersock : , Manuwald , Fishwick : –, and Swain : .
 Hdn. ...
 Animals, divinity, and myth
of divine anger from their quarter was negligible . . . they were the lowest
ranking of all state gods.”
Against this background of skepticism and doubt about the imperial
cult, Aelian’s narrative ends up reinforcing the firm division between mor-
tality and divinity as something neither porous nor negotiable. On one
level, the story depicts the relative scale of divinity described by Gradel.
Pindos’ superlative qualities, for example, raise him to an exalted position
above other mortals, but Pindos himself is shown to be subordinate to
and dependent upon the snake, to which he regularly offers the “payment
for salvation” (μισθὸν σωτηρίας, NA ., p. , line ) that is implied
to be the source of his abundance and elevated status. On another level,
though, Pindos’ death and tomb are stark reminders of the limitations
of mortality, in contrast to which Aelian suggests true divinity as being
disembodied and ineffable. The voice that enjoins Pindos to desist from
his pursuit of the fawns comes from nowhere, and Pindos never sees its
source (πολλὰ περιβλέψας οὐδὲν ἐθεάσατο, p. , lines –). Though
the voice is later implied to belong to the snake, Aelian never explicitly
depicts the snake speaking. The narrative gap separating Pindos’ hearing
of the voice and the epiphany of the serpent a day later opens up the
possibility that the voice, pure logos, belongs to some agent other than the
snake, a higher power whom we never see and whose identity we never
learn. Aelian therefore offers a paradoxical sense of the divine as poten-
tially proximate to mortals, but at the same time distant, mysterious, and
unknowable.

Conclusion
A number of themes recur in Aelian’s treatment of the relationship between
animals and divinity: many different animals are sacred to different gods
and often play an important symbolic role in cult, animals appear in several
etiological narratives about the gods, many animals are distinguished for
their religious piety, animals may even receive worship as gods by humans,
and the behaviors and life cycles of some animals were even thought to
be in sympathy with the divine forces in the natural world. The cast of
gods and goddesses in the NA is richly varied, though for the most part
traditional. The noteworthy prominence, however, of Helios – third in
frequency only after Apollo and Zeus – is probably due to the special
 Gradel : .
 Cf. the disembodied voice of Pan at Longus . and the story of the encounter between Herodes
Atticus and Herakles-Agathion at Philostr. VS –.
 Conclusion 
relationship of the sun god to the Severan emperors through Julia Domna.
But the relevance of Helios was not only political. The sun god – whether
Greek Helios, Roman Sol, Syrian Elagabal, or Egyptian Horus – unified
peoples and cultures. Aelian’s interest in the sun therefore may be seen as
consistent with his Hellenism: if Greek literature offered an ideal medium
for absorbing and communicating the distinguishing qualities of disparate
cultural traditions, then the sun, whose celestial power was recognized by
every nation on earth, was for Aelian an ideal, universalizing symbol of the
divine.
Aelian’s dynamic relationship with the divine is conveyed in his creative
handling of numerous narratives and myths. Myth was, on the one hand,
the source of some anxiety for the author of the NA, as it connoted fabrica-
tion, an unsophisticated appeal to pleasure, and was generally thought to
be opposed to truth. On the other hand, many examples in the NA reveal
that truth was a relative concept for Aelian, and it was possible for him to
conceive of muthopoiêsis as entirely appropriate within his expansive liter-
ary project. Moreover, it was through the creative manipulation of myth
that Aelian was able to make meaningful connections between literature
and contemporary thinking about divinity. Two examples make this point
clear.
The tale of Herakleı̈s and the stork takes its narrative basis and themes
from a traditional story type, along the lines of the tale of the widow of
Ephesus from Petronius’ Satyrica. But Aelian’s version departs significantly
from the Petronian tale. Whereas the story of the widow of Ephesus is
obsessed with the sensual and with the satisfaction of bodily desires, Aelian
transforms those themes, resublimating them to the realm of the divine.
This is accomplished in part through the redeployment of Syrian religious
imagery that was evocative of carnal desires. In the tale of Herakleı̈s and
the stork, Aelian therefore translates a foreign symbolic system relevant to
the religious landscape of Severan Rome by (a) incorporating that system
within a familiar Greco-Roman narrative and (b) reorienting the narrative
away from the corporeal and toward the celestial.
The story of Pindos and the snake deals with the boundary between
human and divine, a theme central to Roman religious thinking during
the Imperial period. Pindos is an exceptional individual whose exceptional
qualities are further enhanced as a result of his contact and tributary rela-
tionship with a giant snake that may or may not be an avatar for a god.
Pindos’ celebrity elevates him to near-divine status, but his downfall reveals
the nature of true divinity. The giant snake avenges Pindos’ murder and
Pindos even gives his name to the river where he dies, both memorializing
 Animals, divinity, and myth
the landscape and generating myth. But this limited form of immor-
tality is paradoxically dependent on mortality. Aelian’s narrative thereby
contributes to the debate on the permeability of the divine – focused on
contemporary skepticism about the imperial cult – by characterizing divin-
ity as ultimately mysterious, unknowable, and unable to be breached by
human mortality.
 c ha p te r 7

Egypt and India

Aelian gives ample space in the NA to the natural and cultural curiosities
of both Egypt and India. Individual chapters on each are, as expected,
scattered throughout the work, but there are also significant clusters of
Egyptian and Indian chapters. Much of Books  and , for example, is
dedicated to Egypt, while most of the chapters in Book  are dedicated
to India. It is during these lengthy Egyptian and Indian phases of the
text when Aelian most obviously breaks from the structural variety with
which he has patterned the rest of his work. Greek writers since Homer
were fascinated by Egypt and India. Both places sparked the imagination
for their perceived geographic distance from the Greco-Roman “center” of
the world. Moreover, both places were thought to be a source of wisdom
that was prior to Greek culture. But by the third century ce, a compari-
son of these two non-Hellenic sources of wisdom seems to have become
commonplace.
Philostratus offers one such narrative sunkrisis of Egyptian and Indian
wisdom culture in the Life of Apollonios of Tyana. Apollonios journeys first
to India, where he meets the gymnosophists, with whom he engages in
extended philosophical discussion and whose mystical rites he witnesses
(Book ). Later, during his journey into Egypt, Apollonios meets the gym-
nosophists who dwell by the Nile, and the oldest among them, a man
named Thespesion, boasts of their own superiority to the sages of India,
even employing as an analogue the story of the Choice of Herakles made
famous by Prodikos in the fifth century bce: the Indian gymnosophists,
with their luxurious living, are more like Vice; whereas the Egyptian gym-
nosophists, dedicated to simplicity and living in harmony with nature, are
more like Virtue (..–). Whereupon Apollonios offers a series of elab-
orate explanations for why these sages are actually inferior to their Indian
counterparts. First, the Indians’ wisdom is akin to his own Pythagorean

 See Platt : –.


 Egypt and India
beliefs (..–). Second, the fact that the Egyptian gymnosophists iden-
tify themselves by slandering their Indian brethren (..–) is for Apol-
lonios an obvious sign of their inferiority to the Indians. Third, he offers a
lengthy defense of adornment and ornamentation (κόσμος, –), such as
that enjoyed by the Indians. Finally, Apollonios praises the Indians’ ability
to rise above the surface of the earth and commune with the sun god: “and
everyone wishes for this, but the Indians alone are capable of it” (τοῦτο
δὲ βούλονται μὲν πάντες, δύνανται δὲ ᾿Ινδοὶ μόνοι, ). Some scholars
have explained Philostratus’ privileging of India over Egypt as reflecting a
contemporary shift of religious thought towards the East under the Severan
emperors.
Unlike the Life of Apollonios, the NA is free of an overarching, linear
narrative and hence the perceived compulsion to evaluate and contrast on
the basis of a single philosophical ideal. The reader of the NA gets only
a hint of this background comparing India and Egypt in a passage where
Aelian contrasts the relative merits of an Indian pharmakon, acquired from
the droppings of a tiny bird known as the dikairon, and the famous drug
employed by Helen in Book  of the Odyssey:
ἐπεὶ τὸ μὲν ἐφ’ ἡμέραν αὐτὴν ἀνεῖχέ τε καὶ ἀνέστελλε τὰ δάκρυα τὸ
Αἰγύπτιον, τὸ δὲ λήθην κακῶν παρεῖχεν αἰώνιον τὸ ᾿Ινδικόν· καὶ τὸ μὲν
γυναικὸς δῶρον ἦν, τὸ δὲ ὄρνιθος ἢ ἀπορρήτου φύσεως δεσμῶν τῶν ὄντως
βαρυτάτων ἀπολυούσης δι’ ὑπηρέτου τοῦ προκειμένου καὶ προειρημέ
νου. καὶ ᾿Ινδοὺς κτήσασθαι εὐτυχήσαντας αὐτό, ὡς τῆς ἐνταυθοῖ φρουρᾶς
ἀπολυθῆναι ὅταν ἐθέλωσιν. (NA ., p. , lines –)
The Egyptian one held back and restrained tears for the day alone, but the
Indian one offered a forgetfulness of troubles that lasted forever. And the
one was the gift of a woman, but the other was the gift of a bird or of
unspeakable nature, which sets one free from bonds that are truly the most
burdensome through the agency of the aforementioned servant at hand.
And the Indians are fortunate to possess it, since they are released from the
prison of this world whenever they wish.
Thus, the NA in this instance adopts a mainstream conceptual framework –
the literary sunkrisis – for depicting Egypt and India. On the whole, how-
ever, Aelian refrains from engaging in synoptic comparisons of Egypt and
India. Both exist in the NA as equally valid imaginative spaces for rework-
ing traditional material and motifs and for thinking and reflecting upon
Aelian’s own world through the lens of cultural difference. Even if we grant

 Smelik and Hemelrijk : . On Philostratus’ story of Apollonios among the Indian gym-
nosophists, see Festugière –.
 Egypt 
that aspects of Aelian’s Egypt and India resemble some objective, historical
reality, it must be remembered that the Egypt and India of the NA are
literary constructions. In this sense, Aelian’s ethnography is a creative act,
the participation in a centuries-old discourse wherein Egypt and India are
continually remade within Greco-Roman culture. In what follows, I offer
an analysis of Aelian’s depiction of these two places that dominated the
Greco-Roman imagination and I also consider how those depictions reflect
the contemporary events and religious concerns of Severan Rome.

Egypt

Sources
Aelian used numerous sources for his chapters on the animals and customs
of Egypt. Herodotus, of course, was a source, but perhaps surprisingly
Aelian mentions Herodotus only twice within chapters that are explicitly
about Egyptian animals (NA . and .). The writer Apion, who lived
in Alexandria in the first century ce, receives as many notices in chap-
ters on Egypt (. and .). Aelian’s other named sources for Egypt,
however, each receive only one notice. It is possible that Aelian also drew
upon Plutarch’s treatise On Isis and Osiris, though that author is nowhere
named in the NA. In total, then, we have ten named sources for Aelian’s
Egyptography, spaced over nine individual chapters (. contains a refer-
ence to both Herodotus and Aristagoras, and . contains a reference to
both Eudoxos and Manethon) out of the total seventy-seven chapters on
Egypt in the NA. It is safe to say, therefore, that Aelian only infrequently
cites individual sources by name when documenting Egyptian animals and
customs.
More common, however, is for Aelian to mention “the Egyptians” or
“Egyptian logoi” generally as a source within individual chapters on Egypt,
a Herodotean trope that Aelian’s readers surely would have recognized.
Thus, we find recurring phrases (with slight variation) such as, “the Egyp-
tians say” (οἱ Αἰγύπτιοι λέγουσι or Αἰγύπτιοί φασι), “I hear from the
Egyptians who say” (Αἰγυπτίων ἀκούω λεγόντων), “I have heard besides
 For Aelian’s use of Herodotus and Apion, see Maspero : .
 Aristagoras (.; cf. FGrH ), Eudemos (.; cf. fr.  Wehrli), Eudoxos (.; cf. fr.  Lasserre),
Manethon (.; cf. FGrH ), Pammenes (., cf. Tac. Ann. ..–), Phularkhos (.; cf.
FGrH ), Ptolemaios Philopator (.; cf. FGrH , fr. b), and Theophrastos (.; cf. fr. .
Wimmer).
 NA ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ..
 NA ., ., . (Αἰγύπτιοι λόγοι).
 Egypt and India
in Egyptian logoi” (ἐν Αἰγυπτίοις λόγοις προσακήκοα), and even “the
Egyptians provide a witness who says” (μάρτυρα Αἰγύπτιοι ἐπάγονται
λέγοντα). “The Egyptians” or “Egyptian logoi” are mentioned as sources
in nineteen of the total seventy-seven Egyptian chapters in the NA, or %
of the time.
The prominence of Egyptian sources in the NA could mean several
things. Aelian could be referring to anonymous Egyptian histories or reli-
gious treatises that had been translated into Greek. One passage even offers
a glimpse of the author as he is faced by the linguistic challenge of putting
a word from an anonymous Egyptian source into Greek: “The Egyptians
revere also a black bull, and they call it Onouphis. And the name of the
place where it is reared, let the Egyptian logoi speak it for us, for it is
rough (τραχύ)” (NA .). Another possibility is that Aelian could be
referring to anonymous Egyptian sources cited by any of the above Greek
authors whose texts he had before him. Also relevant here is the possibility
of Aelian’s familiarity with his contemporary Athenaeus, who came from
Naukratis in Egypt. It may be that Aelian used that writer’s Deipnosophistai
in some of his Egyptian chapters, though Dorothy Thompson has shown
the limitations of Athenaeus’ knowledge of Egypt prior to the Hellenstic
period.
But we should not only look for literary explanations for the prominence
of Egyptian sources in the NA. Twice, in fact, Aelian refers to Egyptian art.
In a chapter about the reverence shown to cows at Khousai in Egypt, based
upon the animal’s erotic nature and its affinity to Heavenly Aphrodite,
Aelian notes that, “even Isis herself the Egyptians depict in both sculpture
and painting (καὶ πλάττουσι καὶ γράφουσι) as having the horns of a cow”
(NA .). In another chapter, Aelian discusses the hybrid form of the
sphinx, basing his account on both traditional lore and artistic evidence:
“and the sphinx, with her double nature, both Egyptian craftsmen, when
they sculpt her (Αἰγύπτιοί τε χειρουργοὶ γλύφοντες), and Theban myths,
when they boast of her, try to show her to us as biform, giving her an air
of solemnity by the blending of maiden and leonine body” (.). There
is every reason to believe that these remarks were informed by Aelian’s
first-hand experience of Egyptian art (or Roman art in the Egyptian style),
an abundance of which could be found in Rome itself. Isis was, of course,
on prominent display throughout Rome, most notably in her famous
precinct and sanctuary in the Campus Martius, which incorporated within
its architecture genuinely Egyptian elements (see Fig. ). A well-known

 NA ..  NA ..  Cf. Smelik and Hemelrijk : .  Thompson .
 Egypt 

Fig.  Temple relief from Behbeit el-Hagar, in Egypt (fourth century bce), reused in the
Temple of Isis in the Campus Martius. Palazzo Altemps, Rome.

fragment of a marble relief in the Palazzo Altemps in Rome provides strong

evidence for popular participation in ritual within the temple of Isis, which
was itself characterized by numerous animals and/or animal representations
(statues of baboons, ibises, the sacred bull; see Figs. –). The iconography
of the precinct of Isis in the Campus Martius, with its cow-horned goddess
and sphinxes, was replicated in numerous sites throughout Rome. One
Roman sanctuary of Isis and Sarapis was in Regio III, below the Caelian
Hill, which an anonymous report from  describes as being decorated
with wall paintings and plaster reliefs depicting winged animals, ibises,
and sphinxes. Another was on the lower slopes of the Aventine, beside the
Tiber, dating from the late second century ce, the walls of which were
covered with graffiti in both Greek and Latin declaring worship of Isis.
Also relevant in considering Aelian’s Egyptian sources is the frequency
with which he employs the verbs ἀκούω (“I hear”) and προσακήκοα (“I
have heard in addition”). Aelian uses these verbs in ten of the seventy-
seven Egyptian chapters, or % of the time. Compare this to the Indian
chapters, where, in cases when his source is unclear, Aelian uses variants
 LTUR .–.  See Wild : –.
 NA ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., and ..
 Egypt and India

(a) (b)

(c)

Fig.  (a) Fragment of a marble slab showing a scene of celebration at the Temple of Isis,
probably the Navigium Isidis (March ), inaugurating the seafaring season. The upper
panel depicts the cult statue of Isis (centrally positioned) flanked by sacred baboons with
ibises above them, the sacred bull Apis, and the god Bes (far right). See Figs. b–c for
details. The relief dates to c.  ce. Palazzo Altemps, Rome. (b) Marble relief depicting
the cult statue of Isis in the Campus Martius. Detail of Fig. a. (c) Marble relief depicting
statues of sacred baboon, ibis, the sacred bull, and the god Bes from the Temple of Isis in
the Campus Martius. Detail of Fig. a.

of the verb ἀκούω a mere % of the time. I attribute the comparatively

high frequency of narrative uses of ἀκούω in the Egyptian chapters at
least in part to Aelian’s acquaintance with Egyptians in Rome, whether
those Egyptians were men of letters, priests or others connected with
the cults of Isis or Sarapis, merchants, or possibly even Aelian’s students.
I grant that this is speculative. After all, Aelian at times uses the verb
ἀκούω when he obviously means that he has gathered his information
from books, e.g. on his reading of, inter alios, Aristotle (ἔγωγε τοῦ παιδὸς
τοῦ Νικομάχου λέγοντος ἤκουσα, .) or Megasthenes (Μεγασθένους
ἀκούω λέγοντος, .). But we also know that Aelian was not bound by an
artificially imposed rule that he could only cite literary sources in the NA;
 i.e. in only four of the seventy-nine Indian chapters: ., ., ., and ..
 Egypt 

Fig.  The Egyptian sacred bull, Apis, dating from the second century bce. Found in 
in fragments on the Esquiline Hill. Palazzo Altemps, Rome.

on the contrary, he freely incorporated material that he had gathered from

first-hand experience or from conversations with friends. On balance,
then, it seems only likely that at least some of Aelian’s anonymous Egyptian
sources may have been actual Egyptians whom he knew in Rome. One can
easily imagine the inquisitive researcher haunting the precinct of Isis in the
Campus Martius and bending the ear of one of the Egyptian priests for
some authentic animal lore from the Nile. This seems a plausible frame
within which to read Aelian’s strong statement that when Egyptians speak,
“men who love wisdom do not listen to them with indifference” (ῥᾳθύμως
αὐτῶν οὐκ ἀκούουσιν ἄνδρες φιλόσοφοι, .).

Representational qualities
In setting forth his fragmentary account of Egypt, Aelian draws upon
traditional motifs. Certain quintessentially Egyptian animals receive due
treatment in the Egyptian chapters of the NA. These are (in descending
order of frequency): the asp, hawk, crocodile, bull, dog, ibis, ichneumon,
 The most obvious examples are NA . (p. , line ), ., ., ., ., and .. On Aelian’s
claim to autopsy at ., see Chapter .
 Egypt and India

Fig.  Statue of a sacred baboon (the Egyptian god Thot) from the Sarapeum in the
Campus Martius, second century ce. Vatican Museums.
 Egypt 
and the phoenix. The hawk is prominent for its sacred quality among
the Egyptians, and Aelian relies upon the traditional assimilation of the
Egyptian hawk-god Horus to the more familiar Apollo (NA .). But
Aelian also reveals the difficulty and the zoological subtleties required in
attempting to impose a one-to-one correspondence between the gods of
Egypt and the gods of the Greco-Roman world. It is not enough merely to
assert that the hawk is Apollo’s bird, for elsewhere Aelian reveals that “the
species of hawks are very numerous (πάμπολλα)” and they “are divided
and allotted to many gods,” including (in addition to Apollo) Athena,
Hermes, Hera, Artemis, and the Mother of the Gods. The list could go
on, Aelian suggests, “one [hawk] to one god, another to another” (ἄλλον
δὲ ἄλλῳ θεῷ, .).
Aelian also emphasizes in several chapters the symbiosis among animals
(humans included) in their Nilotic setting. It is a landscape of natural
abundance, where the Stoic ideal of living in harmony with nature seems
to be more easily achieved. Characteristic in this regard is the cooperation
between the bird known as the trokhilos, the crocodile, and the ichneumon
(NA . and .). Aelian even highlights the bond of euergesia that Egyp-
tians are able to cultivate with cats, ichneumons, crocodiles, and hawks
(.). Moreover, several creatures are noted as living in synchronicity with
the rising and ebbing of the Nile or, like the ibis and the dog, with the
waxing and waning of the moon.
But by far the most common motif in the Egyptian chapters is the role of
animals in Egyptian religion, especially the Egyptians’ worship of animals
as gods. Fascination with this aspect of Egyptian life had a long tradition in
Greek and Roman literature, going at least as far back as Hekataios of Mile-
tos, said by Porphurios to be an important source for Herodotus, whose
own famous ethnography of Egypt in Book  of the Histories approaches
the topic with detached curiosity. Other writers from the Greek Classical
period, such as Anaxandrides, Antiphanes, Timokles, Isocrates, and Plato,
were more hostile. Ridicule of Egyptian animal worship as a means of
asserting Greek superiority may even be seen as a response to a perceived
inferiority to Egyptian culture, which was far older and which could claim
its own superior brand of wisdom. The cultural transformations brought
 Asp: NA ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., .. Hawk: NA ., ., ., ., .,
., ., .. Crocodile: NA ., ., ., ., ., .. Bull: NA ., ., ., .,
.. Dog: NA ., ., ., ., .. Ibis: NA ., ., ., .. Ichneumon: NA .,
., ., .. Phoenix: NA ..
 NA ., ., ., ..  NA ., ., ..
 The testimony of Porphurios is preserved at Eus. PE .. Mras.
 Smelik and Hemelrijk : .
 Egypt and India
about by Ptolemaic rule in Egypt produced a shift in Greek thinking about
Egyptian religion, but whereas there was an increased respect for Egyp-
tian gods, Egyptian animal worship was still viewed with skepticism. The
Hellenistic historian Diodoros of Sicily, in his lengthy excursus on Egyp-
tian animal worship (.–), reflects an abiding fascination, but in his
judgment about its excess (καθ’ ὑπερβολὴν, ..) one notes the familiar
Greek distaste for the custom. Roman authors – equally fascinated by
Egyptian culture and religion – voiced hostility towards Egyptian animal
worship, whether for purposes of political propaganda, such as the anti-
Egyptian elements in Augustan poetry, or to satirize an alien culture: at
the beginning of his fifteenth satire, Juvenal famously posed the question
“Who does not know what sort of monsters foolish Egypt worships?” (Quis
nescit . . . qualia demens | Aegyptos portenta colat?, .–). There were, nev-
ertheless, adherents to Egyptian religion among the imperial elite before the
Severan period, the emperors Domitian, Hadrian, and Commodus being
the most prominent examples. And yet, despite the growing popularity of
Egyptian culture in Rome into the third century, hostility toward Egyptian
animal worship persisted, as Philostratus illustrates in the imagined debate
between Apollonios of Tyana and the Egyptian gymnosophist Thespesion.
The critical position is articulated by Apollonios himself, who speaks of
the “strange and laughable forms” (ἄτοπα καὶ γελοῖα . . . εἴδη, VA ..)
of the Egyptians’ theriomorphic deities and who describes their cults as
“honors more for worthless and irrational animals than for gods” (ζῴων
ἀλόγων καὶ ἀδόξων τιμαὶ μᾶλλον ἢ θεῶν).
Aelian’s relatively positive attitude towards Egyptian animal worship is,
therefore, remarkable, as it avoids the outright disdain of the Roman tra-
dition and hearkens back instead to the curiosity of Herodotus. Rather
than use ethnography to define a position of Greco-Roman cultural supe-
riority, Aelian in fact strives for the universal in detailing the culturally
specific. A lengthy passage on the worship of mice offers insight. Aelian
begins with the statement that, “The Egyptians, then, both worshiping
and making gods out of different kinds of animals, become a joke to most
people at any rate” (Αἰγύπτιοι μὲν οὖν σέβοντές τε καὶ ἐκθεοῦντες γένη
 For a complete treatment of Greek thinking about Egypt from the Classical to Hellenistic period,
see Vasunia . On the shift in Greek thinking during the Ptolemaic period, see Stephens :
.
 Smelik and Hemelrijk : .
 On representations of Egyptian animal worship as reflections of Greco-Roman culture, see Pfeiffer
.
 Smelik and Hemelrijk : –. On Aelian’s depiction of the Egyptian snake-god Ther-
mouthis, see Opelt .
 Egypt 
ζῴων διάφορα γέλωτα ὀφλισκάνουσι παρά γε τοῖς πολλοῖς, NA .). He
then proceeds, however, to describe animal worship not among Egyptians,
but surprisingly among Greeks. The weasel is worshiped among the The-
bans in Greece for its role in the birth of Herakles. More famously, the
people of Hamaxitos in the Troad worship mice at the sanctuary of Apollo
Sminthios, and Aelian even narrates two alternative etiological myths to
explain this curious Greek cult. Aelian concludes the chapter thus: “The
recollection of mice, therefore, drew us into a theological discourse. But
we are no worse off than we were before for having heard such things as
this too” (ἡ μὲν οὖν τῶν μυῶν μνήμη προήγαγεν ἡμᾶς ἐς θεολογίαν τινά,
χείρους δὲ αὑτῶν οὐ γεγόναμεν καὶ τοιαῦτα προσακούσαντες). Having
framed the whole of the chapter around the long tradition of hostility
towards Egyptian animal worship, Aelian challenges Greco-Roman readers
to rethink the basis upon which they assume a position of cultural superi-
ority. We are like the Egyptians, he suggests, even in this unsettling respect,
but this does not diminish us in any way.
In their impressively far-reaching survey of ancient Greek and Roman
attitudes to Egyptian animal worship, Smelik and Hemelrijk helpfully
note that Aelian employs a combination of mythological, symbolic, leg-
endary, and moralizing explanations, sometimes even offering several types
of explanation within a single chapter. But whereas Smelik and Hemelrijk
characterize Aelian’s approach as “confused,” they nevertheless conclude
their survey with several sensible assertions about the variable quality of
attitudes towards Egyptian animal worship over time and within differ-
ent cultures. Just as the conception of Egypt generally could be positive
or negative, so too could Egyptian animal worship be sympathetically
understood or disdained according to those alternative frames, despite that
the trend was on the whole towards disdain and incomprehension. It
seems unwarranted, therefore, that Aelian’s explanations for Egyptian ani-
mal worship should be dismissively characterized as “confused,” when in
fact his text reflects precisely the variability of interpretative approaches
to the cultural phenomenon. Moreover, upon closer inspection, Aelian’s
variable explanations for animal worship find a parallel in his representa-
tion of the variety of practice among Egyptians themselves, which confounds
any single interpretative model.
In an elaborate chapter on crocodiles, for example, Aelian employs an
aesthetic indeterminacy that erodes the presumption that Egyptian animal
worship is itself a stable object of study. The whole of the passage is

 Smelik and Hemelrijk : .  Ibid. –.

 Egypt and India
obsessed with the theme of consumption and eating, but the roles of eating
subject and eaten object shift in unpredictable ways. Aelian humorously
reports, for example, that the women among the Ombitai rejoice when
their children are eaten by crocodiles, “in the belief that they have given
birth to food and a feast for the god” (οἷα δήπου τεκοῦσαι θεῷ βορὰν
καὶ δεῖπνον, NA ., p. , lines –). Among the Apollonopolitai,
however, who despise crocodiles, the creature is trapped, strung up in
trees, beaten, and then is itself consumed as food (σιτοῦνται, line ). The
central portion of the chapter details the recurrence of the number sixty
in the crocodile’s life cycles and in the shape of its body (lines –).
Plutarch, too, gives a similar notice, even offering insight into the religious
significance of the number sixty: “this is the first of the measures for those
who inquire into heavenly things” (ὃ τῶν μέτρων πρῶτόν ἐστι τοῖς περὶ
τὰ οὐράνια πραγματευομένοις, Moralia c). Based on this evidence,
we might reconsider the religious significance of Philostratus’ remark that
Aelian himself “lived more than sixty years” (ἐβίω δὲ ὑπὲρ τὰ ἑξήκοντα
ἔτη, VS ). Aelian concludes this numerological digression by noting
that for a period of sixty days each year the crocodile hibernates and takes
no food (ἀτρόφει, NA ., p. , line ). Resuming his contrast of
the practices of the Ombitai and Apollonopolitai, Aelian states that the
former offer as food to crocodiles the heads of animals that they have
sacrificed, “for they themselves would not taste this part” (αὐτοὶ γὰρ οὐκ
ἂν γεύσαιντο τοῦδε τοῦ μέρους, lines –). The latter, however, hate the
crocodile, either because this was the shape assumed by the god Typhon,
or because, once upon a time, a crocodile ate the daughter of their beloved
king Psammunthos.
The amphibolic structure of the chapter offers nothing decisive about
the crocodile, which remains alternatively an object of worship and an
object of hatred between two Egyptian populations. Even the etiology of
the crocodile’s hatred among the Apollonopolitai is unsettled. Which is the
right explanation: the myth about Typhon or the legend about the daughter
of Psammunthos? Moreover, the central numerological digression about the
special relationship between the crocodile and the number sixty hints that
the natural world is the articulation of some transcendent, divine power,
though Aelian does not make this explicit. The numerological digression
focuses interpretative attention on the body and behaviors of the crocodile,
but without asserting what the reader’s interpretation should be. The point
of the text here, it seems, is not to pass judgment or to offer an original

 Cf. NA ., .. See also Ach.Tat. ..

 Egypt 
anthropological hypothesis, but to represent the mass of conflicting stories
and beliefs among the Egyptians as having its own interest and literary
value. The reader is, therefore, at the end of this chapter left suspended
between the physical world and the divine, between the crocodile as god
and the crocodile as mere beast, and between eating as the necessary
satisfaction of bodily demands and eating (and being eaten) as an approach
to the divine. Aelian’s Egyptography is in literary terms, then, a further
elaboration of the poikilia with which he styles the whole of the NA. Given
such an ambiguous stylization, Aelian’s writing about Egypt – and about
the natural world in general – is bound to frustrate the reader who seeks
only positivist certainty.

Contemporary relevance
The quintessentially Egyptian cult of the goddess Isis became official in
Rome in  bce, with the first public sanctuary in the city appearing
some time in the first century ce, testimony to a growing fascination with
Egypt over the centuries. Imperial interest in Egyptian culture reaches
new heights with Hadrian, whose connection with Egypt is abundantly
attested in art and literature from his reign. One thinks especially of the
Canopus duplicated in the imperial villa near Tivoli, the hexameter poem
by Pankrates celebrating Hadrian’s lion hunt in Egypt with his beloved
Antinoos, and the four epigrams by the poetess Balbilla commemorating
Hadrian’s visit to the colossus of Memnon with his wife Sabina in  ce.
It is well known that Roman interest in Egypt and Egyptian religion
continued or perhaps even intensified under the Severan emperors. Both
Septimius Severus and Caracalla were enthusiastic celebrants of the cult
of Sarapis, and it has been suggested that Sarapis became “a full partner”
with Isis in her precinct in the Campus Martius directly as a result of
Septimius Severus’ enthusiasm for the god. Dio tells of the journey made
by Severus and Julia Domna into upper Egypt in  ce, where “he inquired
into everything, even things that were very much concealed . . . and he

 See Malaise a; Leclant ; Malaise ; Wild ; Takács ; Donaldson ; and
Bricault, Versluys, and Meyboom . On the attraction of the Isis cult to women, see Heyob
.
 See Page : –, Heitsch : –, and Brennan .
 See, among many others, Roullet  and Takács : –. Levick :  emphasizes Rome’s
“increasing recognition” of the Egyptian cults “over a long period of time” and argues against the
notion that interest in the Egyptian cults in this period was the result of “a sudden Severan whim.”
 Wild : . Levick :  may be right that Severus’ interest in the cult of Sarapis “looks a
little like that of a tourist,” but it is no less genuine for that. See also Birley : , .
 Egypt and India
removed from nearly all the temples all the books that he was able to find
that contained anything secret” (..). The Historia Augusta notes that
Severus himself afterwards always made it known that he had enjoyed this
journey on account of his religious observance of the god Sarapis (propter
religionem dei Serapidis, SHA, Severus .) and on account of the novel
animals and places that he saw, including Memphis, the pyramids, the
labyrinth, and even the famous “singing” colossus of Memnon in Thebes.
Philostratus’ description of the colossus and his account of the visit to the
site by Apollonios of Tyana (VA .) recall Septimius Severus’ own visit and
restoration of the statue. In the following generation, Caracalla “brought
the cult of Isis to Rome and built magnificent temples everywhere to this
same goddess” (SHA, Caracalla .), and when he visited Alexandria in 
ce, he even took up residence in the temple of Sarapis. Imperial interest
in Egyptian religion continued into the reign of Alexander Severus, who,
according to the Historia Augusta, fitted out the temple of Isis and Sarapis
at Rome decenter with statues, castrated slaves, and all the things pertaining
to the mystic rites (SHA, Alexander Severus .).
It is also well known that Aelian would have been familiar with the
world of Egyptian imagery from his youth in Praeneste, where the famous
Nile mosaic, dating from c. – bce, was a prominent feature of
the forum complex of Aelian’s home town. The mosaic decorated the
floor of a partially artificial grotto, where a shallow pool received water
from the mountainside above; visitors would therefore have glimpsed the
mosaic’s scenes of Egyptian life along the Nile through the glistening
surface of water in an apsidal nymphaeum that blended art and nature.
The decorative grotto was itself part of the architectural background of the
public forum of ancient Praeneste. Such Egyptianizing art was in vogue
in Italy from the late second century bce into Aelian’s lifetime (Fig. ),
and so the mosaic at Praeneste was likely not inspired by intense religious
sentiment at the time of its production, despite that its scenes suggest the
worship of Isis and Osiris within the context of the cyclical inundations
of the Nile. The mosaic’s suggestions of the Isiac religion would have been
seen as a suitably public design element, given Isis’ syncretic association
with Tukhe-Fortuna, the tutelary goddess of Praeneste. Nevertheless, the
mosaic doubtless would have inspired religious contemplation for viewers
of later generations, especially in the late second and early third century
 Str. .. and Paus. ...  See Platt : –.
 D.C. ... See also Hdn. ..–.
 Meyboom : –. For the cult of Fortuna at Praeneste, see Cic. Div. ..–. On the cult
sanctuaries of Praeneste, see Coarelli : –.
 Egypt 

Fig.  Floor mosaic depicting a scene from the Nile, second century ce. Palazzo Massimo
alle Terme, Rome.

ce, when the Egyptian cults had become the objects of intense religious
interest at Rome.
Aelian’s Egyptography was therefore very much a product of the literary
and religious culture in Rome in the first quarter of the third century ce.
In her intriguing paper on the intertwining of past and present in Aelian’s
works, Schettino rightly stresses the importance of Egypt in Aelian’s vision
of the world. Aelian’s view of Roman history itself is constructed in the
NA as being contingent with the history of Egypt, especially the fall of the
Ptolemaic dynasty that coincided with Augustus’ victory at Actium in 
bce. Egypt even provides the subtext to several of the more prominent
Roman episodes in the NA. Aelian’s reinvestment of Rome within the
Egyptian past springs directly, according to Schettino, from the intense
contemporary interest in Egyptian religion and culture under Caracalla.
One need not go so far as Schettino, however, in presuming for Aelian
a Greco-Egyptian family background. Further, her interpretation that

 Schettino : .

 NA ., ., ., ., ., and .. Cf. also NA . (on the phoenix) with D.C. .. (on
the appearance of the phoenix on the eve of Tiberius’ death).
 Schettino : –.
 Egypt and India
Aelian was a priest of Isis, while attractive, is also purely speculative. I
remain skeptical. One would expect, for example, a priest of Isis to offer
at least some devotional language in honor of the goddess, and yet there
is none in the five rather blasé references to Isis in the NA. Interestingly,
however, there is devotional language in honor of the god Sarapis. There
seems to be more than mere reportage, for example, in the statement that
this “god takes pity on man and heals him” (οἰκτείρει μὲν οὖν τὸν ἄνδρα
ὁ θεὸς καὶ ἰᾶται, .). And considering the contemporary association of
Sarapis with Asklepios, the intensely devotional language in honor of
Asklepios at NA . might by syncretism apply to the Egyptian god as
well. If one were to speculate on the details of Aelian’s real-life religious
activity, it seems equally valid to imagine him as a priest of Sarapis. But
this, too, remains pure speculation.
I am also inclined to disagree with Schettino’s concluding interpretation
of Aelian as playing some cultural or propagandistic role within the vicinity
of Caracalla’s court. I have already established that the persona Aelian
crafts in the NA is that of an independent intellectual, detached from the
spheres of wealth, influence, and political power, a moralist at odds with
the world around him. This persona ill suits the politically tied-in figure
imagined by Schettino. The Egyptian connection here is significant, too.
Given Aelian’s distaste for tyrannical violence, what would have been his
response to Caracalla’s slaughter of the population of Alexandria in  ce –
an episode entirely passed over in silence by Schettino?
Apparently angered by slurs publicly voiced against him by the people
of Alexandria, namely that he was a fratricide and that he was involved
in an incestuous relationship with his mother, Julia Domna, Caracalla
visited the city under the pretense of celebrating a lavish festival in honor
of the god Sarapis. The bait worked: the whole population, completely
unaware of his real intention, came out to celebrate the emperor’s arrival.
Herodian narrates particularly how Caracalla cruelly ensnared the young
men of Alexandria. Promising to enroll them in a special battalion bearing
the name of Alexander the Great, he gathered them together in full sight of
their parents and family. While making his examination of their youthful
bodies, his army drew ever closer, until “as he saw that they were now
surrounded inside the circle of arms and were caught as if in hunting nets”
(ὡς δὲ ἐτεκμήρατο ἤδη αὐτοὺς εἶναι ἐντὸς τῶν ὅπλων περιειλημμένους καὶ

 NA ., , , , .  D.C. ...  Schettino : –.
 D.C. .. and Hdn. ... On the slur against Julia Domna, see Levick : –.
 Egypt 
ὥσπερ ἐν δικτύοις σεσαγηνευμένους, ..), he gave a signal that initiated
the army’s slaughter of the young, unarmed men.
In light of this episode, we might better understand why there are so
few references to Alexandria in the NA and in the VH. Even so, Aelian’s
fictional journey to Egypt, where he claims to have seen a malformed calf,
seems provocative for its setting “in the great city of the Alexandrians”
(ἐν τῇ πόλει τῇ ᾿Αλεξανδρέων τῇ μεγάλῃ, NA .). Obviously there are
no explicit references in the NA either to Caracalla or his bloody visit
to Alexandria, so it is impossible to know precisely what Aelian thought
about the infamous episode. Nevertheless, Herodian’s simile, likening the
entrapment of the young Alexandrians to a scene of hunting with nets
and envisioning Caracalla as the hunter, suggests how that violent episode
might receive alternative literary stylization. Analogous scenes in the NA
offer some insight into one possible response. Turtle doves and stingrays
(τρυγόνες and θαλάττιαι τρυγόνες, respectively) are drawn into nets with-
out even realizing it by the lure of music and dancing, and for this they
are objects of pity (δειλαίαις, NA .). Similarly, in Etruria, men hunt by
means of luring wild creatures into their nets with music. Aelian describes
the stratagem as a perverse invasion of the natural world by human artifice.
The melody from the piper-hunter’s song “streams into” (εἰσρεῖ, NA .)
the various lairs of his prey, filling them with fear (δείματος): wild animals
do not usually wander from the places they inhabit, but the wild animals
of Etruria are made to wander into the hunters’ nets because of the music,
which has for Aelian the unconquerable power of a magic spell (ὥσπερ
ὑπό τινος ἴυγγος ἀναπειθούσης). But most poignant is Aelian’s account
of the snaring of the anthias fish at the end of Book :
᾿Ανθίαι δὲ βαλλόμενοι ὅταν ἁλῶσιν οἴκτιστόν εἰσι θεαμάτων, καὶ ἀπο
θνήσκοντες ἑαυτοὺς ἐοίκασι θρηνεῖν καὶ τρόπον τινὰ ἱκετεύειν, ὥσπερ οὖν
ἄνθρωποι λῃσταῖς ἐντυχόντες ἀνοικτίστοις τε καὶ φονικωτάτοις. οἳ μὲν
γὰρ αὐτῶν ἀποδιδράσκειν πειρώμενοι εἶτα τοῖς δικτύοις ἐμπαλάσσον
ται, ὑπεράλλεσθαι δὲ αὐτοὺς πειρωμένους τὸν λόχον εἶτα μέντοι κατα
λαμβάνει αἰχμή· οἳ δὲ ἀποδιδράσκοντες τόνδε τὸν θάνατον ἐς τὴν τέως

 Harker :  interprets these events as Caracalla’s suppression of a riot, reading the story of
his recruitment of local youths as unconnected with the massacre itself. I am unconvinced by this
interpretation: Caracalla’s murder of the Alexandrian youths is reported by both Herodian and the
Historia Augusta; Dio’s apparent silence should not be taken as evidence that it never happened,
since Xiphilinos is quite clear in his epitome of Caracalla’s dealings with the Alexandrians that he
does not tell us everything that transpired (ἵνα τὰς κατὰ μέρος συμφορὰς τὰς τότε κατασχούσας
τὴν ἀθλίαν πόλιν παρῶ, ..). Regardless of the historicity of the event, Herodian’s account is
clear evidence that the story was circulating after  ce, and Aelian would therefore have known it.
 NA ., ., ., and .; VH ..
 Egypt and India
πολεμίαν ἰχθύσι γῆν ἐξεπήδησαν, τὸ τέλος τοῦ βίου τὸ χωρὶς τοῦ ξίφους
προῃρημένοι καὶ μάλα ἀσμένως. (NA .)
And anthiai that flail about when they are caught are the most pitiable
of sights, and when they die, it is as if they sing themselves a lament and
somehow beseech, just as men do when they fall in with the most pitiless,
murderous brigands. For the ones that try to run away then become trapped
in the nets, and the ones that try to leap over the ambush – the point of
the spear gets them. And those that escape this death leap out onto the
land, previously an enemy to fish, preferring to end their life apart from the
sword, and this most gladly.
There was a long tradition of literary accounts of hunting the anthias that
preceded Aelian. But Aelian’s narrative of the fish’s death as a drama
of resistance and escape from the clutches of the net is an innovation.
Aelian elicits the reader’s sympathies by transforming the fisherman’s prey
into heroes fighting against pitiless brigands and choosing a noble suicide
rather than death by the sword of their enemy. Regardless of the precise date
of composition of this chapter, and whatever Aelian’s intentions may have
been, anyone reading this chapter after  ce would, in sympathizing with
the anthiai, have been drawn also into sympathizing with the butchered
young men of Alexandria. The very name of the anthias, or “bloom-fish,”
suggests the youth of Caracalla’s victims – compare Herodian’s emphasis
on their youth and on the presence of their parents and siblings. Readers
familiar with the tradition within which Aelian was writing would also
know that the anthiai lack teeth and are therefore defenseless (στόμα
τοῖσιν ἄοπλον, Opp. H. .), just like the young men of Alexandria at
the moment of their death (ἀόπλους, Hdn. ..). Aelian himself, shortly
before this chapter, motivates such an associative reading when, in didactic
mode, he declares that, “fishing with nets . . . is like capturing an army and
taking prisoners” (ἡ μὲν δικτυεία . . . ἔοικεν ἁλισκομένῳ στρατοπέδῳ καὶ
αἱρουμένοις αἰχμαλώτοις τισί, NA .). Aelian’s text thus may suggest
the contemporary relevance of Egypt even when it is not talking about
Egypt per se.
After this episode in Egypt, coins were struck depicting Caracalla wearing
the cuirass of a conqueror, posing victoriously, lance in hand, with his right
foot pressed down upon a crocodile, and receiving a shaft of grain from
Isis on his right. The message is clear: Egypt subdued. One such coin was
 Ov. Hal. ; Plin. Nat. . (cf. Ael. NA .), .; Plu. Mor. c–d; Opp. H. .–, .,
–; and Ath. b (Ananios). On the identification of the anthias by comparison with the fish
known as aulôpias, kallikhthus, and kalliônumos, see Mair : liii–lxi.
 Hdn. ...
 India 
found in Rome itself, and the image would therefore have been a familiar
one to Aelian.

India

Sources and representational qualities

In his impressive study of the formation of India within Greco-Roman
thought, Grant Parker offers only brief discussions of Aelian, since, as
he puts it, “it cannot be claimed that India stands at the middle of his
writing.” But India takes up as much textual space in the NA as does
Egypt and is equally relevant to Aelian’s contemporary cultural milieu.
Aelian’s most prominent named source for India is of course Ktesias of
Knidos, after whom Aelian is indebted to a series of historians inspired
by Alexander the Great’s expedition to India in / bce. These facts
are not surprising, given that Ktesias and Alexander were responsible for
forming much of the way the Greek and Roman worlds thought and wrote
about India. Snakes, monkeys, birds, and elephants dominate Aelian’s
Indian chapters, as might be expected. But Aelian’s India is also popu-
lated by fantastical creatures that reinforce the characterization of India
as a world of marvels. The reader encounters a series of unicorn-like
creatures, as well as creatures resembling satyrs, huge winged scorpions,
and a host of giant animals from both the land and sea. For Aelian,
India is a place of maximal fecundity, nature outsized, a realm of the
hypernatural.
Aelian also famously preserves Ktesias’ accounts of two hybrid creatures,
the grups (.) and the martikhoras (.). The chapter on the mar-
tikhoras is intriguing for Aelian’s remarks on the reliability of his source.
The martikhoras has the body of a lion, the stinging tail of a scorpion, and
a human face with three rows of teeth capable of devouring two or three
men at a time. Aelian reports Ktesias’ claim to have seen this creature at
 See CREBM ccvi, Malaise b: , and Smelik and Hemelrijk : .
 Parker : .
 Aristotle (., ., .), Juba (., ., .), Kleitarkhos (., ., ., .), Ktesias of
Knidos (., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., .), Megasthenes (.,
., .), Nikandros of Kolophon (.), Onesikritos (., .), Orthagoras (., .), and
Polukleitos (.).
 See Romm : – and Parker : –.
 Unicorn-like creatures: NA ., ., .; satyr-like creatures: .; winged scorpions: .; giant
animals: ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ..
 On the anxiety about the hypernatural and hybridity projected onto India, see Koulakiotis .
 Frs. h and dβ Lenfant. See Parker : –, .
 Egypt and India
the court of the Persian king, “if,” he adds, “Ktesias is for anyone a suffi-
cient voucher about such things” (εἰ δὴ τῳ ἱκανὸς τεκμηριῶσαι ὑπὲρ τῶν
τοιούτων Κτησίας, NA ., p. , line ), adapting for his own purposes
a line from Thucydides about the historical reliability of Homer. This is
Aelian the scholar at his most playful: the third-century writer of natural
wonders cites a famous fifth-century bce ethnographer, while quoting the
consummate historian of the Classical period, himself citing the father of
Greek muthopoiêsis. The resulting effect is a sense of seemingly limitless
literary deferral. At the same time, this passage offers a prime example of
the constructed, discursive quality of Greco-Roman Indography (especially
at its most fantastical) within the larger Greek literary tradition. All roads –
even the long, exotic roads to India – lead back to Homer. Far from being
discredited for his account of the martikhoras, Ktesias is in fact all the more
worthy of Aelian’s attention: “anyone at any rate who has heard the indi-
vidual qualities of this creature, let him then indeed pay attention to the
historian from Knidos” (ἀκούσας γε μὴν τὰ ἴδιά τις τοῦδε τοῦ ζῴου εἶτα
μέντοι τῷ συγγραφεῖ τῷ Κνιδίῳ προσεχέτω, lines –). This fantastical
aspect of Indography is in line with the paradoxographical tendencies of
the NA generally.
Part of the aesthetic appeal of India for Aelian is the polychromatic, var-
iegated quality of many of its animal inhabitants. I discussed the culturally
significant chapter on the Indian peacock in Chapter , but numerous other
creatures are characterized by their decorative poikilia. The hybrid grups,
for example, has skin “flowering” (διηνθίσθαι, NA ., p. , line ) with
dark blue feathers. Indian cocks have combs that are not red, like those of
Western cocks, but are “dappled like flowering garlands” (ποικίλον κατὰ
τοὺς ἀνθινοὺς στεφάνους, ., p. , line ). Polukleitos is Aelian’s source
for the polychromatic Indian lizards, whose skin “is amazingly dappled
with flowery pigmentation” (βαφαῖς τισιν εὐανθέσι τὰς δορὰς πεποικίλθαι
δεινῶς, .). Some Indian snakes that Aelian finds in Kleitarkhos offer
an ekphrastic challenge: “the appearance of their skin is dappled, as if they
had been painted over with dyes, for some have copper colored bands
that creep down from their head to their tail, and others are like silver,
others have been made red, and some even glitter like gold” (ποικίλους γε
μὴν τὴν χρόαν ὁρᾶσθαι, ὥσπερ οὖν φαρμάκοις καταγραφέντας· τοὺς μὲν
γὰρ χαλκοειδεῖς ταινίας ἔχειν ἀπὸ κεφαλῆς ἐς τὴν οὐρὰν καθερπούσας,
τοὺς δὲ ἀργυρίῳ προσεικασμένας, πεφοινιγμένας ἄλλους, καὶ μέντοι καὶ

 ὡς ῞Ομηρος τοῦτο δεδήλωκεν, εἴ τῳ ἱκανὸς τεκμηριῶσαι, Th. ...

 Cf. VH ., and see Parker : –.
 India 
χρυσοφαεῖς τινας, .). Kleitarkhos is also the source for Aelian’s elaborate
description of the bird known as the katreus, of surpassing beauty:
τὸ μέγεθος γὰρ εἴη ἂν πρὸς τὸν ταῶν, τὰ δὲ ἄκρα τῶν πτερῶν ἔοικε
σμαράγδῳ. καὶ ὁρῶν μὲν ἄλλους οὐκ οἶδας οἵους ὀφθαλμοὺς ἔχει· εἰ δὲ εἰς
σὲ ἀπίδοι, ἐρεῖς κινναβάριν εἶναι τὸ ὄμμα πλὴν τῆς κόρης· ἐκείνη δὲ μήλῳ
τὴν χρόαν παρείκασται καὶ βλέπει ὀξύ. τό γε μὴν τοῖς ἁπάντων ὀφθαλμοῖς
λευκόν, ἀλλὰ τοῖς τοῦ κατρέως τοῦδε ὠχρόν ἐστι. τὰ τῆς κεφαλῆς πτίλα
γλαυκωπά, καὶ ἔχει ῥανίδας οἱονεὶ κρόκῳ παρεικασμένας εἶτα ἄλλην ἄλλῃ
διεσπαρμένας. πόδες δὲ αὐτῷ σανδαράκινοι. (NA .)
For its size would be like the peacock, but the tips of its feathers are like
emerald. And when it looks at others, you do not know what sort of eyes
it has. But if it should look in your direction, you will say that its eye is
cinnabar except for its pupil, and that is like an apple in color and has a
sharp glance. Nevertheless, there is a part of the eyes in all creatures that is
white, but in the eyes of this katreus it is yellow. The feathers of its head are
bluish grey, and it has spots that look like saffron distributed here and there.
And its feet are orange.
These descriptions obviously have much in common with the variegated
literary aesthetic that characterizes Aelian’s work. It will be remembered
that in the epilogue of the NA Aelian employs the same language and
imagery to describe the organizational variation of his book as a means
of enticing his readers: “I thought I should weave and intertwine this
collection like a meadow or garland in bloom with polychromatic variety,
the many animals acting like flower-bearers” (NA ep., p. , lines –).
Along with the other potentially contradictory connotations (versatile,
Protean, unstable, undisciplined, effeminate) that Aelian’s literary poikilia
would have had for his readers, the style would also have connoted the
language and imagery of Indian exotica.
The relationship between animals and language is also a recurring theme
in the Indian chapters of the NA. Consider the story of the elephant named
Nikaia that was entrusted to look after the infant child of her trainer’s wife,
who gave the animal instructions “in the language of the Indians, to which
elephants respond” (φωνῇ τῇ ᾿Ινδῶν, ἧς ἀκούουσιν ἐλέφαντες, NA .).
Aelian is careful to tell us that this took place when Antigonos II Gonatas
was besieging Megara, during the Chremonidean war between Macedonia
 On the katreus, see Vian .
 Hercher’s emendation (ὁρῶντος μὲν ἄλλοσε) is attractive, but GLR are right to print ὁρῶν μὲν
ἄλλους, the reading found in all the manuscripts but one (A). The phrase should be a genitive
absolute or some other such subordinating construction, but Aelian elsewhere commits the same
grammatical infelicity, cf. παῖς δ’ ἔτι οὖσα, γίνεται αὐτῇ κατὰ τοῦ προσώπου φῦμα ὑπ’ αὐτὸ τὸ
γένειον, VH ..
 Egypt and India
and the Greek states (– bce). A linguistic breakthrough regarding
elephants came in Egypt during the reign of Antigonos’ contemporary,
Ptolemaios II Philadelphos, who was given as a gift a baby elephant that
“was raised in the Greek language and understood those who spoke it.
But it had been believed before this animal that elephants understood
only the language of the Indians” (τῇ φωνῇ ἀνετράφη τῇ ῾Ελλάδι, καὶ
λαλούντων συνίει. ἐπεπίστευτο δὲ πρὸ τοῦδε τοῦ ζῴου τῆς ᾿Ινδῶν μόνης
φωνῆς ἐπαΐειν τοὺς ἐλέφαντας, .). The paradoxographical element of
both these passages is not just the blurring of the line between animal and
human (i.e., that an elephant can understand human language) but also
the intense cultural blending (Indian, Greek, Egyptian, Macedonian) that
arose in the wake of Alexander’s conquests. This cultural blending was at
its most uncanny when it was seen not in humans, the proper agents of
culture, but in their animal counterparts.
But elephants are not the only Indian animals distinguished by their
relationship with human language. Aelian informs us that many Indian
birds “speak with their tongue like a man” (τῇ γλώττῃ φθέγγεται δίκην
ἀνθρώπου, NA .). Remarkable in this respect are the birds known
as sittakoi (also known as psittakoi): “all of these, having learned like chil-
dren, thus also themselves become talkative and they speak with a human
voice” (οἱ πάντες δὲ οὗτοι μαθόντες ὡς παῖδες, οὕτως καὶ αὐτοὶ γίνονται
λάλοι καὶ φθέγγονται φθέγμα ἀνθρωπικόν, .). Without exposure to the
sounds of human language, however, the sittakoi lack the faculty of speech:
“But in the woods they emit the sound of birds, and they do not produce
clear, eloquent language, but they are untaught and not at all talkative” (ἐν
δὲ ταῖς ὕλαις ὀρνίθων μὲν ἀφιᾶσιν ἦχον, φωνὴν δὲ εὔσημόν τε καὶ εὔστομον
οὐ προΐενται, ἀλλ’ εἰσὶν ἀμαθεῖς καὶ οὔπω λάλοι). The bird known as the
kerkiôn, which Aelian introduces in the following chapter, “is, when it has
been taught human language, more talkative and more naturally clever than
the sittakoi” (μουσωθὲν ἀνθρώπου φωνὴν εἶτα μέντοι τῶν σιττακῶν ἐστι
λαλίστερόν τε καὶ θυμοσοφώτερον, .). Aelian could well have sum-
moned Stoic arguments denying the meaningfulness of the vocalization
of birds, but he instead emphasizes that such vocalization is a learned
skill, and the simile likening birds to human children strongly suggests

 I retain Hercher’s emendation (ἐλέφαντας) as preferable to the reading of the manuscripts (ἐλάφους):
Aelian is clear at NA . that elephants (not deer) were able to understand the Indian language.
 Cf. Arist. PA a. See Dierauer : –.
 Cf. Philo of Alexandria, On Animals  (Terian) and D.L. .. See Tabarroni  and Sorabji :
–. On the topic of animals and speech in Greek literature before the Stoics, see Heath .
 India 
an anti-Stoic position. But in a surprising reversal, Aelian then suggests
that birds might be better off without human language. The kerkiôn, he
explains, refuses to be merely the plaything of its human instructor: “it
does not kindly submit to being raised by humans, but, from a longing
for liberty and from a desire for the freedom of expression of its own
brood, it welcomes famine rather than slavery with food” (οὐ μὴν τὴν ἐξ
ἀνθρώπων τροφὴν ἡδέως ὑπομένει, ἀλλὰ ἐλευθερίας πόθῳ καὶ παρρησίας
τῆς κατὰ τὴν συντροφίαν ἐπιθυμίᾳ ἀσπάζεται λιμὸν μᾶλλον ἢ δουλείαν
μετὰ τρυφῆς). Human speech, then, far from being an inherently advanta-
geous acquisition for the bird, is rather a sign of enslavement and the loss
of its freedom. Moreover, the bird’s “desire for the freedom of expression of
its own brood” suggests contemporary anti-Stoic philosophical arguments
that animals possess their own language that humans are merely incapable
of understanding.
A further interesting case is that of the Indian kunokephaloi, who seem
to possess all of the attributes of human civilization except language.
Though they have the head of a dog, “the rest of them is human, and
they walk about dressed in the skins of wild beasts. And they are just,
and they don’t hurt anyone, and they speak not a thing, but howl; neverthe-
less, the language of the Indians they understand” (τὰ δὲ ἄλλα ἀνθρώπων
ἔχουσι, καὶ ἠμφιεσμένοι βαδίζουσι δορὰς θηρίων. καί εἰσι δίκαιοι, καὶ
ἀνθρώπων λυποῦσιν οὐδένα, καὶ φθέγγονται μὲν οὐδέν, ὠρύονται δέ,
τῆς γε μὴν ᾿Ινδῶν φωνῆς ἐπαΐουσι, .). The kunokephaloi therefore seem
to occupy a liminal space in the conceptual framework dividing human
from animal. And yet their inclusion within Aelian’s book is clearly the
result of the author’s critical decision: “I have made mention of them
among the irrational creatures, and reasonably so, for they do not possess
articulate, clear, human speech” (μνήμην δὲ αὐτῶν ἐν τοῖς ἀλόγοις ἐποιη-
σάμην, καὶ εἰκότως· ἔναρθρον γὰρ καὶ εὔσημον καὶ ἀνθρωπίνην φωνὴν
οὐκ ἔχουσιν). Aelian here echoes Stoic doctrine concerning the meaning-
lessness of animal voices, while at the same time reinforcing cultural and
racial prejudices against barbarians. But elsewhere in the NA, the posses-
sion of “articulate, clear, human speech” is, of course, not the sole factor
determining also the possession of logos in any given species. The sittakos
and kerkiôn birds are capable of replicating human speech, but that obvi-
ously does not privilege them with reason and bar them from inclusion
 Cf. Plutarch, On the Cleverness of Animals f–e, On the Eating of Flesh e; S.E. P. .–,
–. See also Newmyer : –, , , , .
 Plu. On the Eating of Flesh e; S.E. P. .–; Porph. Abst. .–. Cf. Aelian NA ..
 See Romm : – and .  Cf. Agamben : –.  D.L. ..
 Egypt and India
among the aloga of Aelian’s book. On the contrary, given Aelian’s generally
pessimistic view of human civilization, it might paradoxically be deemed
more of a privilege to be ranked among the idealized “irrational creatures”
that live in harmony with nature without the need or trouble of human lan-
guage (or logos). Read in conjunction with the chapters on the Indian birds
and elephants, Aelian’s contradictorily Stoic pose in this passage on the
kunokephaloi challenges readers to recognize the arbitrariness with which
humans make the conceptual divisions that privilege themselves over their
animal counterparts. India offers itself as the ideal imaginative space
within which to conduct such conceptual experimentation and to blur
the lines between human and animal, not to mention the lines between
Roman, Greek, and other.

Contemporary relevance
The enthusiasm for Alexander the Great among the Severan emperors
would obviously have been relevant to Aelian’s literary exploration of
Indian fauna. So great was Septimius Severus’ reverence for the Mace-
donian leader, according to Dio, that when the emperor visited Egypt, he
locked up the tomb of Alexander, so that no one would any longer be
able to look upon his body (..). Caracalla’s adoration of Alexander
the Great was so intense, “that he even used certain weapons and cups in
the belief that they had belonged to the famous man, and he furthermore
even set up many statues of him both in the camps and in Rome itself”
(ὥστε καὶ ὅπλοις τισὶ καὶ ποτηρίοις ὡς καὶ ἐκείνου γεγονόσι χρῆσθαι,
καὶ προσέτι καὶ εἰκόνας αὐτοῦ πολλὰς καὶ ἐν τοῖς στρατοπέδοις καὶ ἐν
αὐτῇ τῇ ῾Ρώμῃ στῆσαι, ..). It was not enough to grant his hero
the Roman appellation “the Augustus of the East” (ἑῷον Αὔγουστον,
..), for he also wrote to the senate that the spirit of Alexander had
entered his own body to live again, after having lived such a short life
the first time. Herodian confirms this mania when he says that, after his
journey along the Danube in  ce, Caracalla proceeded to the border
of Macedonia, where “he straightaway was Alexander” (εὐθὺς ᾿Αλέξανδρος
ἦν, ..). Herodian also mentions the elaborate statuary, adding that, “in
some places we even saw images worthy of a joke: in depictions of a single
body, on a single round head, two half-faces, one belonging to Alexander,
the other belonging to Antoninus” (ἔσθ’ ὅπου δὲ καὶ χλεύης εἴδομεν ἀξίας

 Cf. Porph. Abst. .–, with commentary by Sorabji : –.

 See also SHA Caracalla .–.
 India 
εἰκόνας, ἐν γραφαῖς ἑνὸς σώματος ὑπὸ περιφερείᾳ κεφαλῆς μιᾶς ὄψεις
ἡμιτόμους δύο, ᾿Αλεξάνδρου τε καὶ ᾿Αντωνίνου, ..). Caracalla went so
far as to persecute Aristotelian philosophers, in the belief that Aristotle
had been an accomplice in Alexander’s death (D.C. ..) – this persecu-
tion would certainly not have endeared Caracalla to a writer like Aelian.
Alexander’s association with India was a prominent feature of Caracalla’s
impersonation of the hero: “by Zeus, he even led about with himself many
elephants, so that even in this he might appear to imitate Alexander, but he
was more like Dionysus” (νὴ Δία καὶ ἐλέφαντας πολλοὺς συμπεριήγετο,
ὅπως καὶ ἐν τούτῳ τὸν ᾿Αλέξανδρον, μᾶλλον δὲ Διόνυσον, μιμεῖσθαι δόξῃ,
..).
Given the contemporary craze for Alexander the Great, the Indian phases
of the NA would have found an enthusiastic readership in Severan Rome,
especially those chapters in which Alexander himself appears, conceived by
Aelian as a sympathetic witness to the natural world. In the important chap-
ter on the peacock Aelian writes that, “Alexander the Macedonian, when
he saw these birds in India, was astonished, and in wonder at its beauty
he threatened the person sacrificing the peacock with most severe threats”
(NA ., see Chapter ). At the beginning of Book , Aelian describes how
the Indians presented Alexander with the spectacle of a special breed of
tiger-dog pitted against a lion: the dog bit into its adversary and refused
to release its jaws even after its tail and legs were cut off. When the dog’s
head was finally severed from its body, “Alexander was at this point grieved
(ἠνιᾶτο), astonished (ἐκπλαγεὶς) at the dog because indeed while giving a
trial of itself it had then died, its disposition opposite to that of cowards,
and it met its death because of its courage” (.). In another chapter, Aelian
recounts how the Indians successfully persuaded Alexander not to harm a
giant sacred snake that dwelt in a local cave. But when the army passed
by the creature’s cave, it perceived them, stuck its head out, and “let out a
hissing breath so great as to astonish (ἐκπλῆξαι) everyone and throw them
into confusion” (.), for it was said to measure seventy cubits and its eyes
were as big as a large Macedonian shield. Then there were the two giant
snakes raised by the Indian Abisares, which, Onesikritos says, “Alexander
had an exceeding desire to see” (ἐπιθυμῆσαι δεινῶς ᾿Αλέξανδρον θεάσασ-
θαι, .). Finally, Aelian reports that in the mountainous regions of India,
there are monkeys that grow so big that, according to Kleitarkhos, when
Alexander encountered them, he “became very frightened (πάνυ κατα-
πλαγῆναι), together with his troops too, thinking that having seen them
crowded together he was looking upon an army that had been assembled
and was lying in wait for him” (.). One notes the passive experience of
 Egypt and India
astonishment as a recurring motif in Aelian’s stories of the Indian Alexan-
der. Just as Caracalla appropriated the figure of Alexander as the role model
for his own imperial dreams, so too does Aelian appropriate Alexander
and mold him in his own image as an intellectual with a passionate desire
not to kill or hunt, but to learn about the nature of animals and, indeed,
their virtues.
But Aelian’s India, for as much as it inspires wonder, is in some ways
also characterized by its uncanny familiarity, and in several chapters it
seems as if, whatever the validity of his sources, Aelian is drawn to his
material precisely because it offers a literary prism through which to view
the culturally familiar as only slightly defamiliarized by its Indian setting. I
have in mind especially Aelian’s accounts of the animal spectacles and the
chariot races staged by the Indian king. One day every year, the Indian king
offers contests (ἀγωνίας, NA .) among a variety of horned animals,
including wild bulls, tame rams, single-horned asses, and animals called
mesoi and huainai. All these, Aelian writes, “by means of some wondrous
nature compete until victory, just like athletes or those who exert their
strength for the greatest prizes or for solemn glory and a noble reputation.”
But after the aforementioned creatures have given their show, the elephants
themselves enter the arena as agônistai: “these advance wounding each other
even to the point of death by means of their horns, and sometimes one
overpowers and kills his opponent, but sometimes even the both of them
die together.” In these annual animal death matches in India we are surely
invited to see a projection of Rome’s gladiatorial shows, with which the
author and his readers would have been familiar. These are not just animal
spectacles like the Roman venationes; Aelian’s animal competitors in India
are all armed, as it were, with horns (kerata), the swords that nature has
given them.
In his chapter on the Indian chariot races, Aelian focuses his attention
more on the human spectators and participants: “And indeed the Indians
are enthusiastically dedicated to their racing oxen” (NA .). Aelian’s
ethnographic pose finds its parallel in a passage from Josephus, whose
own ethnographic gaze is fixed not on India, but on Rome itself, where
“there were chariot races, for this spectacle is fanatically pursued among the

 Cf. Parker : –.  Cf. NA Epilogue, p. , lines –.

 The word has a literary flavor: while it is the term preferred by Philostratus (VA .., .., ..,
..; VS .; Her. .; Gym. passim), epigraphic evidence refers to such contests in the East
as agônes. The one instance of agônia in an inscription commemorating an athletic contest is IG
II , from Attica, where the word is convenient for the iambic meter. I thank the anonymous
reader for this observation.
 India 
Romans, and they eagerly assemble in the hippodrome” (AJ ..). The
Indian chariot races therefore offer Aelian an opportunity for commentary
on the fanaticism of the Roman hippodrome: “And both the king himself
and many of the nobles contend over the swiftness of those [animals],
and they make high wagers in gold and silver, and they do not think it
disgraceful to vie over these creatures, but they yoke them together in fact
and gamble on victory” (NA .). Aelian explains that the cattle are not
yoked together in pairs, but that each ox is harnessed alongside a pair of
horses, so that each charioteer must drive a team of three. The conclusion
to this episode is especially fascinating:
ἐὰν δέ ποτε ὁ βασιλεὺς πρός τινα ὑπὲρ τῶν ἑαυτοῦ βοῶν σύνθηται,
εἰς τοσαύτην προχωρεῖ φιλονεικίαν, ὡς αὐτὸς ἐφ’ ἅρματος ἕπεσθαι, καὶ
παρορμᾶν τὸν ἡνίοχον. ὃ δὲ ἄρα τοὺς μὲν ἵππους ἐξαιμάττει τῷ κέντρῳ,
τῶν δὲ βοῶν τὴν χεῖρα ἀνέχει· ἀκέντητοι γὰρ θέουσι. τοσαύτη δέ ἐστι
περὶ τὴν βοεικὴν ἅμιλλαν ἡ φιλοτιμία, ὡς μὴ μόνους τοὺς πλουσίους ὑπὲρ
αὐτῶν ἐπὶ πολλῷ φιλονεικεῖν μηδὲ τοὺς δεσπότας ἀλλὰ καὶ τοὺς θεωμένους,
οἷα δήπου καὶ ὁ ᾿Ιδομενεὺς ὁ Κρὴς καὶ ὁ Λοκρὸς Αἴας παρὰ τῷ ῾Ομήρῳ
φιλονεικοῦντες ἀποδείκνυσθον. (NA .)
And if the king ever bets with someone on his own oxen, he becomes so
desirous of victory that he himself follows in a chariot and urges on the
charioteer. And he for his part bloodies his horses with his whip, but he
doesn’t lay a hand on the oxen, for they run without the need of the whip.
And so great is the rivalry for the competition of the oxen, that not only the
wealthy and their masters contend over them for high stakes, but so too do
the spectators, just as, I suppose, Cretan Idomeneus and Lokrian Ajax are
shown competing in Homer.
In India, just as in Rome, the madness for the races infects all strata of
society, and the depiction of the firsthand involvement of the Indian king
reflects the zealous involvement of the Severan Augusti themselves in the
chariot races of the hippodrome. Herodian reports, for example, that when
the people jeered at his favorite charioteer, Caracalla ordered the arrest of
all the culprits, resulting in the guards’ indiscriminate arrest and murder of
countless spectators. Only those who could pay their own ransom to the
guards were set free. The same historian suggests that Caracalla’s rivalry
with Geta might even have been the result of their sporting rivalry in
boyhood. Elagabalus’ own participation in the races and his attachment to
certain charioteers, apparently as erotic as it was sporting, are well known.
Aelian’s reference to Homer at the end of the chapter is a universalizing

 Hdn. ..–.  Hdn. ..–.  D.C. ..–..

 Egypt and India
gesture, linking the seemingly questionable enthusiasm for the chariot races
among the Indians (and, by extension, the Romans) with a noble Greek
past.
Depictions of India were relevant to the religious culture of Severan
Rome as well, which is shown in Aelian’s treatment of the story of the
Indian prince transformed into a hoopoe. Aelian begins the narrative by
contrasting the behavior of kings in Greece and India. Greek kings prize a
horse’s bit and raiment, but Indian kings delight in the hoopoe. Cultural
difference is therefore the frame within which Aelian asks the reader to
consider the Brahmin myth that follows.
παῖς ἐγένετο ᾿Ινδῶν βασιλεῖ, καὶ ἀδελφοὺς εἶχεν, οἵπερ οὖν ἀνδρωθέν
τες ἐκδικώτατοί τε γίνονται καὶ λεωργότατοι. καὶ τούτου μὲν ὡς νεωτά
του καταφρονοῦσι, τὸν δὲ πατέρα ἐκερτόμουν καὶ τὴν μητέρα, τὸ γῆρας
αὐτῶν ἐκφαυλίσαντες. ἀναίνονται οὖν ἐκεῖνοι τὴν σὺν τούτοις διατριβήν,
καὶ ᾤχοντο φεύγοντες ὅ τε παῖς καὶ οἱ γέροντες. (NA ., p. ,
lines –)
A prince was born to the king of the Indians, and he had brothers who, when
they became men, were most lawless and villainous. And they disdained the
prince for being so young, and they sneered at their father and mother,
disparaging their old age. The boy and his aged parents therefore refused to
spend any more time with them and they went into exile.
The myth starts out as a family drama in which those at the two extreme
stages of life (youth and old age) are victimized by arrogant sons in their
prime. The behavior of the wicked princes is typical of the human behavior
censured by Aelian throughout the NA and contrasted time and again with
the idealized behavior of animals. The elderly parents cannot, however,
endure their journey into exile and they die, at which point the young
prince demonstrates his filial piety: “he did not neglect them, but buried
them in himself, making an incision in his head with his sword” (ὁ δὲ παῖς
οὐκ ὠλιγώρησεν αὐτῶν, ἀλλ’ ἔθαψεν αὐτοὺς ἐν ἑαυτῷ, ξίφει τὴν κεφαλὴν
διατεμών, lines –). With this surreal detail, the narrative enters the
realm of the divine, and Aelian once again reminds us of the Brahmin
source of the myth:
ἀγασθέντα δὲ τὸν πάντ’ ἐφορῶντα ῞Ηλιον οἱ αὐτοί φασι τῆς εὐσεβείας τὴν
ὑπερβολήν, ὄρνιν αὐτὸν ἀποφῆναι, κάλλιστον μὲν ὄψει, μακραίωνα δὲ τὸν
βίον· ὑπανέστηκε δέ οἱ καὶ λόφος ἐκ τῆς κορυφῆς, οἱονεὶ μνημεῖον τοῦτο
τῶν πεπραγμένων ὅτε ἔφευγεν. (lines –)

 On the moral flexibility of the athletic anecdote in Aelian’s VH, see König b: .
 India 
And the same people say that Helios, who looks upon all things, admiring
his excessive piety, turned him into a bird, the most beautiful to look at, and
with a long life. And a crest even rose up out of his head, this as a reminder
of what he did when he was in exile.
Aelian’s reference to the Indian solar cult has numerous parallels in Philo-
stratus’ Life of Apollonios of Tyana. By attributing the Indian prince’s
metamorphosis to Helios “who looks upon all things,” Aelian participates
in the contemporary trend of representing the supremacy of Helios in
Indian religious thought.
It has, however, been duly recognized that Philostratus’ utopic depic-
tion of India is drawn according to Hellenic ideals, and John Morgan
has suggested that the Indian cult of Helios in the Life of Apollonios of
Tyana is an instance of “transferred discourse.” According to Morgan’s
model, Philostratus displaces contemporary religious interest in the cult of
Helios to a mythical realm in a part of the world believed to be close to
the sun. Contemporary interest in Helios was of course intensified by Julia
Domna’s close family ties to the cult of Sol Elagabal at Emesa, whether or
not the empress herself actively promoted that interest (see Chapter ).
But incorporation of the Emesan cult into mainstream Greco-Roman cul-
ture was not an easy or straightforward affair, as evidenced by the outrage
and ultimately the violence inspired by the young emperor Elagabalus’
introduction, or rather imposition, of the sun god into Roman civic life.
Julia Domna’s well-known philhellenism and her commission of the Life
of Apollonios of Tyana suggests an accommodating, assimilationist strategy
rather more nuanced than Elagabalus’ politically unsophisticated imposi-
tion of the Emesan cult in Rome. According to Morgan, the attraction
of Apollonios of Tyana to those with a vested interest in the Emesan sun
cult “was precisely that he allowed Sun-worship to be associated with Hel-
lenism; his very name encapsulates the combination.” Further evidence
are coins, struck during the reign of Elagabalus, that commemorate ath-
letic competitions at Emesa with the legend ἡλιὰ πυθία, a phrase that can
only be translated awkwardly into something like “Helian Pythian Games”
or “Games of Helios, in the manner of the Games of Pythian Apollo.”
Though there are no fewer than eighty-seven references to games “ranking
with the Pythian games” (isoputhia) on inscriptions from Asia Minor, none
of these draw explicitly on the association with Helios, as do the ἡλιὰ πυθία

 Philostr. VA .., .., ..–, ..–, .., and ...  Parker : –.
 Morgan : .  Levick : –.  Morgan : .
 Greek Coins in the British Museum, Syria, Emesa, no. .
 Egypt and India
of Emesa. “This is,” writes Morgan, “both an obvious move to assimilate
the cult to that of Delphic Apollo, and at the same time to relocate and to
annex the centrality of Hellenism.”
This is, I argue, the same strategy that Aelian is playing in his retelling
of the Brahmin myth of the Indian prince. My argument is based not just
on the central reference to Helios, but on Aelian’s overall emphasis on the
translation of myth through time and across cultures. After telling how the
prince was transformed into the hoopoe, Aelian explains that, “some such
things even the Athenians, talking marvels about the lark, applied to a myth
that I think in fact the comic poet Aristophanes followed in the Birds” (NA
., p. , lines –). Aelian then even quotes the relevant verses from
the Birds82 before concluding, “It seems therefore that from the Indians the
mythical narrative, applied to a different bird, flowed (ἐπιρρεῦσαι) in fact
also to the Greeks. For it was an Ogygian length of time, say the Brahmins
(᾿Ωγύγιον γάρ τι μῆκος χρόνου λέγουσι Βραχμᾶνες), since these things
were performed for his parents by the Indian hoopoe when he was still a
human boy” (p. , line –p. , line ).
Aelian’s point therefore has been not just to narrate the Brahmin myth,
but also to demonstrate the spread of the myth from East to West. Aelian
uses the verb “flow” (ἐπιρρεῦσαι), and the liquid metaphor evokes the
ever-changing, incessantly surging power of myth, much like the carmen
perpetuum of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Interestingly, though, Aelian suggests
that the flow of myth is multi-directional, as he represents in almost chiastic
fashion the Athenians perpetuating an Indian myth while the Brahmins
refer to the myth of the primordial Attic king Ogyges. While the central
agency of Helios in Aelian’s passage evokes contemporary interest in the
Emesan sun cult, the additional statement about the cultural transference
of myth perfectly illustrates what Morgan has described as the attempt
“to relocate and to annex the centrality of Hellenism.” Aelian’s notice of
the Indian myth therefore should be read not as a sterile, refurbished relic
from the library, but as a creative re-writing engaged with contemporary
concerns regarding the assimilation of non-Greek beliefs within Hellenism.

Conclusion
Aelian grants equal space in the NA to depictions of Egypt and India with-
out explicitly favoring one over the other on ideological or philosophical

 Morgan : .  Ar. Av. –.  Ov. Met. ..

 Eus. PE .., quoting a passage from Book  of the Chronographia of Julius Africanus.
 Conclusion 
grounds. In addition to more traditional literary sources, Aelian claims
firsthand information from genuine Egyptian sources that were likely both
literary and non-literary, i.e. conversations with personal acquaintances as
well as inspection of Egyptian or Egyptianizing art in Rome and Praeneste.
Aelian’s depictions of Egypt are for the most part traditional and he is
especially interested in the role of animals in Egyptian religion. Aelian’s
relatively positive attitude towards Egyptian animal worship is remarkable,
as it avoids the outright disdain of the Roman tradition and hearkens back
instead to the eager curiosity of Herodotus. Aelian even challenges Greco-
Roman readers to rethink the basis upon which they assume a position of
cultural superiority.
Aelian has been criticized for his methodological inconsistency, but he
presents the mass of conflicting stories and beliefs among the Egyptians
as having its own interest and literary value. Aelian’s Egyptography is in
literary terms, then, a further elaboration of the poikilia with which he styles
the whole of the NA. Aelian’s Egyptography was very much a product of
the literary and religious culture in Rome in the first quarter of the third
century ce. There is, however, insufficient evidence to support the claim
that Aelian was a priest of Isis, nor should Aelian’s enthusiasm for Egyptian
culture be seen as a sign of his support for Caracalla.
Aelian’s sources for his chapters on India were Ktesias of Knidos and a
series of historians of Alexander the Great. Snakes, monkeys, birds, and
elephants predominate in Aelian’s Indian chapters, as might be expected,
and fantastical creatures reinforce the traditional characterization of India
as a world of marvels. Part of the aesthetic appeal of India for Aelian is
the polychromatic, variegated quality of many of its animal inhabitants,
suggesting a strong association between literary poikilia and the imagery
of Indian exotica. Aelian is also interested in the capacity for speech in
certain species of animal from India. Read in conjunction with the chap-
ters on the Indian birds and elephants, Aelian’s contradictorily Stoic pose
in the passage on the kunokephaloi challenges readers to recognize the
arbitrariness with which humans make the conceptual divisions that priv-
ilege themselves not only over their animal counterparts, but also over
barbarians.
The popularity of Indian stories in the early third century is tied to
the figure of Alexander the Great, who served as a role model for both
Septimius Severus and his son Caracalla. Within the NA, however, Aelian
shapes Alexander in his own image, characterized by his curiosity and
wonder at the natural world. Aelian’s India can also be read as an uncanny
mirror for contemporary Roman culture, with some chapters even evoking
 Egypt and India
Rome’s “strange” fascination with the violence of the arena and the mania
for the chariot races of the hippodrome. Finally, in the Brahmin myth of
the Indian boy transformed into a hoopoe through the intervention of
Helios, Aelian engages in the symbolic translation of foreign religious cults
and traditions by an all-embracing imperial Greek culture.
 c h a p te r 8

The sexual animal

Erôs features prominently in the NA. One would expect, of course, to

read in this book the descriptions of animal mating habits typical of nat-
ural histories, whereas erôs is associated more with the sphere of human
experience. Nevertheless, erôs is a regular ingredient in Aelian’s scholarly
compendium. But Aelian is throughout the NA motivated not by a desire
to offer a scientific display of animal behavior, but to use literary repre-
sentations of animals as a means of moral commentary on human society.
With the human orientation of the NA in mind, it is perhaps not incredible
after all that an erôs more often associated with humans would play such a
prominent role in Aelian’s representations of the animal world: erôs struc-
tures social behavior, often presents ethical and philosophical problems,
and, finally, titillates and entertains. Aelian is clearly interested in the erôs
of humans and human fascination with erôs just as much as he is interested
in the putative erôs of animals.
Of the  entries in the NA,  (or %) discuss sex or erôs. These
entries treat three general topics, with several topics sometimes overlap-
ping in a single entry. First, Aelian is most frequently concerned with
the morality of sexual behavior in animals, centered around the themes
of self-control and the lack thereof. Second, there is a recurring interest
in the gendering of certain sexual behaviors. Within a given species male
and female partners are each expected to act in certain ways, both lead-
ing up to and during sexual intercourse, but Aelian has a keen interest in
those animals that transgress such normative sexual behaviors. The final
section of this chapter will deal with Aelian’s fascination with interspecies

 On erôs as an exclusively human emotion, see Konstan .

 These are: ., , –, –, –, , , ; ., , , ; ., , –, , , –; .–, –,
, , , –; ., ; ., , , –, , , , , , ; ., , , , , ; ., , , ,
–; ., , , , , , , , ; .–, , , , , –; ., –, , ; ., , ,
, ; ., , ; ., , ; ., , , , , ; ., , , ; ., .


 The sexual animal
eroticism, with a special focus on those narratives depicting erotic relation-
ships between humans and animals.

Sex and morality

The theme of sexual continence and incontinence appears early and often
in the NA. Already in the second chapter of the collection Aelian introduces
the themes: the skaros “is the most lustful of all fish, and its insatiable desire
for the female becomes the cause of its capture” (λαγνίστατος δὲ ἄρα
ἰχθύων ἁπάντων ἦν, καὶ ἥ γε πρὸς τὸ θῆλυ ἀκόρεστος ἐπιθυμία αὐτῷ
ἁλώσεως αἰτία γίνεται, NA .). Aelian describes how fishermen use the
female skaros as bait to attract a crowd of male fish, but he transforms the
scene of hunting into a familiar scene of human courtship: “Accordingly
the males, just like young men when they have seen an amorous bride, are
both stung to a frenzy and run after her, and each one strives to outpace
the other, to get close to her, and to touch her lightly, just like men who are
madly in love when they hunt for a kiss or a scratch or some other of love’s
stolen prizes” (οὐκοῦν οἱ ἄρρενες, ὥσπερ οὖν νύμφην ἐρωτικὴν νεανίαι
θεασάμενοι, οἰστροῦνταί τε καὶ μεταθέουσι, καὶ ἐπείγονται φθάσαι ἄλλος
ἄλλον καὶ γενέσθαι πλησίον καὶ παραψαῦσαι, ὥσπερ οὖν δυσέρωτες
ἄνθρωποι φίλημα ἢ κνίσμα θηρώμενοι ἤ τι ἄλλο κλέμμα ἐρωτικόν). The
erotic fish hunting for a kiss are ironically also the hunted, and it is precisely
their erotic impulse that becomes for them the cause of their destruction.
Comparison with Oppian’s Halieutika, Aelian’s probable source for this
passage, is enlightening. Whereas Oppian uses simile to transform the
contending fish into Homeric athletes striving in a footrace, eager for the
sweet prize of victory (H. .–), Aelian by contrast, whose interest
here is clearly on erôs and its effects, turns instead to erotic imagery drawn
from new comedy or Greek romance.
But far from celebrating love, this scene is an indictment of the power
of Aphrodite, equally destructive in the animal as in the human realm:
“Accordingly, when they have streamed in together, they are caught, and
this is the penalty that the skaroi pay for their erotic onrush” (οὐκοῦν
συνεισρεύσαντες ἑαλώκασι, καὶ διδόασι δίκην ὁρμῆς ἀφροδισίου ταύτην
 Cf. Aelian’s note that “the kunokephaloi are both mad for virgins and indeed use force more than
Menander’s young teenage boys who are unable to control themselves at the all-night festivals”
(ἤκουσα δὲ κυνοκεφάλους καὶ παρθένοις ἐπιμανῆναι καὶ μέντοι καὶ βιάσασθαι ὑπὲρ τὰ μικρὰ
μειράκια τὰ τοῦ Μενάνδρου τὰ ἐν ταῖς παννυχίσιν ἀκόλαστα, . [PCG VI , test. ]). Scholfield
notes that, “No comedy of Menander of the name of Παννυχίς(-ίδες) is known; the reference is
presumably general” (a: ). For erotic rivalry over another man’s wife in Greek romance, see
esp. Chariton .–.
 Sex and morality 
οἱ σκάροι, NA .). Aelian’s first essay on love in the natural world focuses
on the violence of erôs. The young men of the simile are “stung to mad-
ness” (οἰστροῦνται); Aelian says that they strive to lay their hands lightly
(παραψαῦσαι) upon the girl, but that “light” touch is threatening enough
to provoke the girl’s defensive scratching (κνίσμα), thought by her pursuers
to be just as good as a kiss; and their quarry is described as a νύμφην
ἐρωτικὴν, which could mean just a girl of marriageable age or even that
the young woman is already joined in erotic matrimony to another man.
Aelian allows for the interpretation that the skaroi are not, therefore, merely
the innocent victims of a fisherman’s ploy, but the frenzied young rapists of
another man’s wife, and there is justice in the penalty that they pay (διδόασι
δίκην). In this seemingly programmatic essay on erôs in the natural world,
Aelian appears to echo the contemporary moral authority of Roman Sto-
icism, which warned against the dangers of human vulnerability to the
erotic passion. Elsewhere in the NA, Aelian says that fish generally are
sexually unrestrained, but, in addition to the skaros, he makes special men-
tion of the sargos, kephalos, khannê, and the octopus. Other animals that
Aelian marks as sexually incontinent are mares, camels, tomcats, hawks,
mice, rabbits, weasels, red apes from India, and land tortoises. All of this,
of course, casts light also on the moral failings of humans, and one may
read Aelian’s recurring interest in erotic jealousy, his censure of marital
infidelity, and human use of aphrodisiacs and erotic suppressants all as part
of the overall moral critique of sexual incontinence in the NA.
But Aelian offers also numerous positive portrayals of sexual morality.
The aitnaios fish, pigeons, and ringdoves are, for example, temperate and
faithful mates, while crows, bees, bulls, camels, the agnos snake, and turtle-
doves all display modesty and are able to control their sexual urges. Hounds
sacred to Hephaistos in Sicily even have a natural ability to sense the sex-
ually impure and they chase them from the god’s temple. Most notable,
however, is Aelian’s elaborate depiction of the sexual life of elephants, which
stands as an illustration of Pythagorean ideals; unlike humans, however,
elephants have no need of doctrine, since nature itself is their teacher. Male

 See French : .  Gaca : –.

 Fish generally: .; the kephalos: .; the sargos: .; the khannê: .; the octopus: ..
 Mares: ., .; camels: .; tomcats: .; hawks: .; mice: .; rabbits: .; weasels: .;
red apes from India: .; and land tortoises: ..
 Jealousy and infidelity: .; .; .; .; .; .; .; .. Aphrodisiacs and erotic sup-
pressants: ., ., ., ., ., ., .. On magic and nature in the NA, see Zucker
.
 The aitnaios fish: .; pigeons: .; ringdoves: .; crows: .; bees: .; bulls: .; camels: .; the
agnos snake: .; turtledoves: .; hounds of Hephaistos: ..
 The sexual animal
elephants, for example, approach females not with the intent of rapists
or lechers, but “like those requiring the succession of their species and
begetting children, in order that they might not be wanting in offspring
from one another, but that they might leave their seed” (ὥσπερ οὖν οἱ
γένους διαδοχῆς δεόμενοι καὶ παιδοσποροῦντες, ἵνα μὴ αὐτοῖς ἐπιλίπῃ
ἡ ἐπιγονὴ ἡ ἐξ ἀλλήλων, ἐάσωσι δὲ σπέρμα, NA .). They are mind-
ful of sexual desire only once in their whole life, and at that time only
for reproduction with their mate. Furthermore, elephants are endowed
with such a sense of shame that even when they do copulate for that one
time, they modestly conceal themselves in a shady spot thick with boughs.
They are, in other words, the natural embodiment of τὸ σῶφρον, “mod-
esty or prudence.” Aelian’s picture of the elephants here corresponds
quite closely with the procreationism of the Pythagoreans, which held that
sex was only acceptable within marriage and for reproductive purposes,
and that even under these conditions sexual pleasure should be moderated.
Pythagorean ascetics rejected all other forms of sexual behavior as immoral.
This rule, they believed, would ensure the moral improvement of future
generations.
The account of the chaste elephants implies an argument from nature
that would seem to validate, to naturalize Pythagorean sexual morality.
And while the argument from nature had a long tradition in Greek writing
on sexual morality, the NA by means of its contradictory representa-
tions demonstrates the manipulability of nature for ideological purposes.
A reader may be puzzled by a text that at one moment idealizes nature by
representing elephants as a model of the human virtue of sôphrosunê, but
that at another moment disdains creatures like the skaros fish as lagnistatos,
“most lecherous,” because of its uncontrollable sexual urges. Is nature right
or wrong, then, when it comes to sexual morality? The problem, however,
lies precisely with interpretative strategies that seek only moral certainty
and the author’s presumed adherence to certain pre-formed philosophical
ideologies. But the NA, rejecting any single philosophical doctrine and
instead embracing a supple, variegated aesthetic, frustrates such interpre-
tations, as was seen in Chapter . It is more productive, I argue, in reading
a text that defines itself according to poikilia, to seek out, if possible, those
very phases of transformation where we might witness the narrative voice
shifting, almost imperceptibly, as it seeks an alternative reading of sex in

 See also NA ..  Iamb. VP  (Aristoxenos); Philostr. VA ... See Gaca : –.
 Goldhill : –.
 Sex and morality 
nature. In other words, the NA offers lines of flight that connect and
therefore relativize seemingly contradictory moral frameworks.
Aelian’s treatment of the hypersexual partridge is a case in point. At
first he approaches the topic with the familiar Pythagorean anxiety over
pleasurable, non-procreative sex. Close reading, however, reveals that such
putatively incontinent sexual behavior, rather than being flatly immoral,
may paradoxically offer a means of moral transfiguration. Aelian writes
that, “Partridges have no control over sexual desire. Accordingly, they
hide the eggs that have been produced, so that the females may not as a
result of tending their brood have no time for sex with them” (Πέρδικες δὲ
ἀκράτορές εἰσιν ἀφροδίτης· οὐκοῦν τὰ ᾠὰ τὰ γεννώμενα ἀφανίζουσιν, ἵνα
μὴ ἄγωσιν αἱ θήλειαι παιδοτροφοῦσαι τῆς πρὸς αὐτοὺς ὁμιλίας ἀσχολίαν,
NA .). The idea is repeated again several chapters later, where Aelian
offers the additional notice that when the females are in fact successful in
leaving their mate behind to tend to their maternal responsibilities, the
male partridges turn to each other for sex: “Whenever the females, having
left them behind, then sit upon their eggs, the males intentionally inflame
one another to anger, and they both strike and are struck most harshly. And
the one who is defeated is mounted like a bird, and he does this without
any sense of shame, until which time he himself, having been defeated by a
different one even, falls into his similar grips” (ὅταν αὐτοὺς ἀπολιποῦσαι
εἶτα ἐπῳάζωσιν αἱ θήλειαι, οἳ δὲ ἐπίτηδες εἰς ὀργὴν ἀλλήλους ἐξάπτουσι,
καὶ παίουσί τε καὶ παίονται πικρότατα· καὶ ὅ γε ἡττηθεὶς ὀχεύεται ὡς
ὄρνις, καὶ δρᾷ τοῦτο ἀνέδην, ἔστ’ ἂν ὑφ’ ἑτέρου καὶ αὐτὸς ἡττηθεὶς εἶτα
ἐς τὰς ὁμοίας λαβὰς ἐμπέσῃ, .). Elsewhere too we learn that cocks and
tame partridges, when females are absent, mount male newcomers who
have not yet been tamed (.). These narratives about partridges, since
they characterize sexual behavior between males as non-procreative and
as uncomfortably combining pleasure and violence, suggest therefore that
sexual behavior between males is the quintessential sign of an inability to
moderate or control sexual desire.
There is a shift, however, in the elaborate chapter that opens
Book , which radically alters the association between immorality and
sexual behavior among males. The chapter begins by proclaiming the
familiar refrain that partridges are the most licentious (ἀκολαστότατοι) of
birds. Here, though, their akolasia is marked not by an erôs that may be
directed indiscriminately at either females or males, but by an erôs directed

 On the “line of flight,” see Deleuze and Guattari : –, –.
 Lecherous partridges: ., ., ., and .. Cf. Arist. HA b–a.
 The sexual animal
at females: “For this reason indeed they desire females too most acutely,
and they are very often defeated by lust” (ταῦτά τοι καὶ τῶν θηλειῶν
ἐρῶσι δριμύτατα, καὶ τῆς λαγνείας ἡττώμενοι συνεχέστατά εἰσιν οἵδε,
NA .). Aelian notes that those who train these birds for competition
place their female mates beside their male partners as spectators, since the
male partridge would rather die than allow his female beloved or wife to see
him turn away from the blows of his adversary. Then, in a surprise move,
Aelian summons as a parallel to the immoderate relationships between male
and female partridges the idealized pederastic relationships among human
males: “The men of Crete too have this same idea in mind regarding
the objects of their desire” (τοῦτό τοι καὶ Κρῆτες ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐρωμένων
ἐνενόουν). One young man, a warrior, was in love with a meirakion whose
physical beauty equalled his spiritual and intellectual beauty, but who was
as yet too young to be summoned to arms. His lover was heroic in battle,
but when pressed by the enemy flank he stumbled over a dead body and
fell. Then, as an enemy was about to run him through the back with his
spear, the young man turned and said, “Do not deliver me a shameful
and feeble blow, but strike me face to face, against my chest, so that my
beloved might not find me guilty of cowardice, and avoid laying out
my dead body – indeed he would not dare to approach one who has so
disgraced himself ” (μηδαμῶς . . . αἰσχρὰν καὶ ἄναλκιν πληγὴν ἐπαγάγῃς,
ἀλλὰ κατὰ τῶν στέρνων ἀντίαν παῖσον, ἵνα μή μου δειλίαν ὁ ἐρώμενος
καταψηφίσηται, καὶ φυλάξηται περιστεῖλαί με νεκρόν, καὶ μάλα γε ἀσχη-
μονοῦντι προσελθεῖν οὐ τολμῶν). Gone suddenly is the conceptualization
of male homoeroticism as non-procreative and therefore a sign of moral
failure or an inability to control sexual desire. Conceived within the famil-
iar patterns of paiderastia, on the contrary, the story of the Cretan lovers
serves as a moral paradigm that even an immoderate erôs may give rise to
other virtues, in this case not just acts martial valor (ἀρετάς) but also the
sense of honor that arises from shame and self-respect (aidôs). The digres-
sion has not distracted Aelian from his animal inspiration, the bird whose
immoderate erôs motivated him to a display of honor: “That a human
being was ashamed to appear obviously base is no wondrous thing. But
for a partridge to have a share of aidôs, this is an exceedingly holy gift
from nature” (αἰδεσθῆναι μὲν οὖν ἄνθρωπον ὄντα φανῆναι κακὸν οὔπω
θαυμαστόν· πέρδικι δὲ μετεῖναι αἰδοῦς ὑπέρσεμνον τοῦτο ἐκ τῆς φύσεως
τὸ δῶρον).

 Cf. Lys. . (Against Alcibiades 1).

 Dual sexuality and transgender phenomena 
It will be remembered that the chapter started out as a further elab-
oration on the sexual incontinence of partridges; it ends up, however,
as a comparative meditation on how erôs – even apparently transgressive
erôs – may be transformative and give birth to moral virtues, depending on
one’s perspective and how one chooses to read nature. Being lagnistatos, it
turns out, does not foreclose the possibility of being a moral creature. At
the very least, this chapter on the aidôs of partridges offers a compelling
challenge to the moral certainties of Pythagorean sexual ideology as it was
articulated in the chapter on the reproductive life of elephants. But the
preceding examples suggest also more wide-ranging implications. Aelian’s
narratives of the hypersexual partridge offer powerful evidence that censo-
rious moral pronouncements in the NA should not be taken at face value
as indications of the author’s philosophical or moral “attitude.” In fact,
the NA demonstrates that holding tenaciously to a single philosophical or
moral attitude will inevitably fail when the moralist is faced with nature’s
infinite variety. In other words, the NA embraces sensibilities that are more
supple and flexible in their moral interpretations of sex in nature.

Responses to dual sexuality16 and transgender phenomena

Toward the end of Book , Aelian offers a chapter on the various human
uses of fish. Placing the hyena fish underneath the pillow of an enemy will,
for example, produce bad dreams in the sleeper, and the tail of a trakhouros
fish, when hung around the neck of a pregnant mare, will soon after cause
her to miscarry. But it is the third item in this passage that draws our
attention:
μειρακίου γε μὴν δεομένου ἐπὶ μήκιστον τριχῶν ἀπορίας τῶν ἐπὶ τοῦ
γενείου, αἷμα ἐπιχρισθὲν θύννου ἀωρόλειον τὸ μειράκιον ἐνεργάζεται. δρᾷ
δὲ ἄρα καὶ νάρκη καὶ πνεύμων τὸ αὐτό· ἐν ὄξει γὰρ διασαπεῖσαι αἱ τούτων
σάρκες καὶ ἐπιχρισθεῖσαι τοῖς γενείοις, φυγὴν τριχῶν ἐνεργάζονταί φησι.
τί πρὸς ταῦτα Ταραντῖνοί τε καὶ Τυρρηνοὶ σοφισταὶ κακῶν δαιδάλων
ἐκεῖνό γε ἀνιχνεύσαντές τε καὶ πειράσαντες τὴν πίτταν, ὡς ἐξ ἀνδρῶν εἰς
γυναῖκας ἀποκρίνειν; (NA .)
And indeed when a teenager needs an absence of hair on his chin for a
very long time, the smeared blood of a tuna makes the teenager unnaturally
beardless. And indeed both the narkê and the pneumôn fish do the same
thing. For the flesh of these fish, when it has been made to putrefy in
 I use the phrase “dual sexuality” throughout this section to refer to a single organism’s simultaneous
possession of or potentiality for physical traits typical of both the male and female sexes. In this
sense, the term “sexuality” is not meant to imply the modern abstract concept of sexual identity.
 The sexual animal
vinegar, and when it has been smeared on the chin, makes the hair disappear,
it says. Why, considering these things, o Tarentine and Tyrrhenian experts
in wicked craftsmanship, did you track down and make trial of your famous
pitch, with the result that instead of men you’ve classed them as women?
The rhetorical question with which this sentence concludes, censuring the
effeminacy of the men of Tarentum and the Etruscans, accords with the crit-
icisms of effeminate male behavior elsewhere in Aelian’s works. The Souda
preserves a fragment of Aelian’s attack on the philosopher Epicurus and his
followers, banished from Rome, Messenia, and Luktos in Crete for their
effeminacy and atheism (διά τε μαλακίαν καὶ ἀθεότητα). The people of
Luktos passed a law condemning their “womanly wisdom” (τὴν θήλειαν
σοφίαν), and if any person were daring enough to pursue the lifestyle of
Epicurus, he was to be pilloried for twenty days, smeared with honey and
milk, to be a feast for bees and flies. If, after twenty days, the perpetrator
was still alive, he was to be thrown from a cliff “dressed in women’s clothes”
(στολὴν γυναικείαν περιβληθείς). Such characterizations of Epicurus and
his philosophy as effeminate were popular and widespread.
Then there is the evidence of Aelian’s scabrous diatribe The Indictment of
the Little Woman (Katêgoria tou gunnidos), an invective against Elagabalus
that Aelian “dared” to read in public after the emperor’s assassination.
Philostratus tells us only that Aelian described the oration as an attack on the
tyrant who “shamed Roman affairs with his total licentiousness” (ἀσελγείᾳ
πάσῃ τὰ ῾Ρωμαίων ᾔσχυνε, VS ), but the source of that shamefulness
was, as the title of the piece indicates, the emperor’s extreme effeminacy.
The Souda has preserved several of Aelian’s fragments on a “womanish
thing from Syria” (γύναιον ἐκ Συρίας) which echo several of the more
lurid details about Elagabalus described or exaggerated or fabricated by
Dio and Herodian and which may well be extracts from the Katêgoria tou
gunnidos (see Appendix). But even if they are not from Aelian’s political
invective, they nevertheless give a vivid sense of the feminine behavior that
would have outraged conservative moralists at Rome, especially if it had
been the behavior of an emperor.
All this evidence seems to suggest Aelian’s consistently negative response
to male effeminacy as a sign of an immoral indulgence in pleasure. Being

 Fr.  Hercher and Domingo-Forasté.

 In his painstaking analysis of the historiographical sources for Elagabalus, Arrizabalaga y Prado does
not discuss the evidence of Aelian’s Katêgoria tou gunnidos because it did not meet his criteria for
selection (“original proposal of distinct propositions about Varius or his avatar,” : ) – Aelian
never names Elagabalus explicitly.
 Fr.  Hercher,  Domingo-Forasté.
 Dual sexuality and transgender phenomena 
confronted by forms of biological life or ways of being that threaten the
binary opposition between masculine/feminine and male/female may pro-
duce in those who witness, read, or hear about them an acutely negative
reaction. I term this the abjective response. There was of course a long
tradition against male effeminacy in Greek and Roman thought, but the
emphasis on cultivating the proper masculine identity had reached new
heights during the second century ce. As Maud Gleason has shown at
length, normative masculinity among pepaideumenoi and the elite during
this period meant conforming to certain modes of deportment, speaking
with a voice that conveyed authority and demanded attention, wearing the
right clothes, and in general presenting the right kind of public figure. A
man aspiring to cultural mastery had to be on his guard against wearing
clothes that were deemed too luxurious, against letting the voice slip, against
striking a pose that would impugn his masculine persona. Depilation too
was suspicious. A quick study of the imperial portraiture of the Severans,
with their full, manly beards, reveals that this masculine styling persisted
into the third century ce (Figs. –). Septimius Severus’ portraits show
him with the full beard evocative of Marcus Aurelius, Caracalla’s shorter
beard is consistent with his vigorous military persona, and even the por-
traits of the younger emperors seek to present on their cheeks the growing
hair of the adult male beard. Aelian’s abjective response to the depilatory
practices of the Tarentines and Tyrrhenians would seem, therefore, to be
consistent with the normative masculinity of his era.
Upon closer inspection, however, Aelian’s passage on the depilatory use
of fish reveals an interesting inconsistency of thought. First, Aelian not only
passes on to posterity the knowledge about the depilatory effectiveness of
tuna blood, but he also provides additional notices about how to prepare
alternative depilatory ointments using two different fish. This is surely
knowledge that someone morally opposed to depilation would try to sup-
press, not publicize. And the emphatic riposte to the men of Tarentum and
the Etruscans seems to mark a personality that is indeed morally opposed
to young men artificially removing their facial hair, a cosmetic practice
that effects a putatively unnatural transgression of gender. Note especially
Aelian’s language here, which connotes a reclassification of Italian meirakia
“from men into women” (ἐξ ἀνδρῶν εἰς γυναῖκας ἀποκρίνειν). And yet
that concluding sentence is not itself even straightforward, as it seems at
first to object not to male depilation per se, but to the Italians’ use of
pitch (πίτταν) when other, more “natural” ointments were available. Two

 Gleason .  Newby : –.  Cf. LSJ ἀποκρίνω I. (supp.)
 The sexual animal

Fig.  Bust of Septimius Severus. Musei Capitolini, Rome.

Dual sexuality and transgender phenomena 

Fig.  Bust of Caracalla. Musei Capitolini, Rome.

 The sexual animal

Fig.  Bust of Elagabalus. Musei Capitolini, Rome.

 Dual sexuality and transgender phenomena 
points of view therefore seem to be in competition in this passage: the one
establishing that fish are the best means of depilation for young men, the
other condemning male effeminacy. This double mentality is born, I argue,
when moral certainty is confronted with the physical transformations that
nature is capable of effecting, transformations that transcend the myopic
limits of human morality.
Aelian’s recurring interest in the sex and gender of certain animals is
profitably understood with this in mind. It is a commonplace in the NA
that within any given species there is sexual differentiation between male
and female bodies and that male and female partners are each expected to
act in certain ways deemed appropriate to their physical sex, both leading
up to and during sexual intercourse. There is, in other words, a normative
alignment of sex and gender for most species in the NA, with males acting
in masculine ways and females acting in feminine ways. There are, though,
certain species that confound this expectation. The ichneumon, the hare,
the hyena, and the swallow all have within each member of the species both
male and female potentialities, and they are for that reason all disruptive to
normative sex and gender as understood by third-century Roman culture.
One might then expect these creatures to meet with the abjective response
that attempts to reinforce the “proper” binary categorization of gendered
behavior and sexed bodies. Indeed, Aelian’s description of the sexual life of
ichneumons employs much of the same moralizing language that we have
seen before:
῾Ο δὲ ἰχνεύμων ὁ αὐτὸς ἄρα καὶ ἄρρην καὶ θῆλυς ἦν, μετειληχὼς καὶ τῆσδε
τῆς φύσεως καὶ τῆσδε, καὶ σπείρειν τε καὶ τίκτειν τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἡ φύσις
δέδωκεν. ἀποκρίνονται δὲ εἰς τὸ ἀτιμότερον γένος οἱ ἡττηθέντες μετὰ τὴν
μάχην· οἱ γὰρ κρατήσαντες ἀναβαίνουσι τοὺς ἡττημένους καὶ εἰς αὐτοὺς
σπείρουσιν. οἳ δὲ ἆθλον τῆς ἥττης φέρονται ὠδῖνάς τε ὑπομεῖναι καὶ ὑπὲρ
τοῦ τέως ἀντὶ πατέρων γενέσθαι μητέρες. τοῖς γε μὴν πολεμιωτάτοις
ἀνθρώπῳ ζῴοις, ἀσπίδι καὶ κροκοδείλῳ, ἔχθιστον ὁ ἰχνεύμων, καὶ τόν
γε πόλεμον αὐτῶν ἀνωτέρω εἶπον. λέγονται δὲ οἱ ἰχνεύμονες ἱεροὶ εἶναι
Λητοῦς καὶ Εἰλειθυιῶν· σέβουσι δὲ αὐτοὺς Αἰγύπτιοι ῾Ηρακλεοπολῖται, ὥς
φασιν. (NA .)
And the same ichneumon is indeed both male and female, having obtained
a share both of this nature and of this one, and nature has given to the same
ones both to sow and give birth. And the ones that have been defeated after
battle are classed as the less honorable sex, for the dominant ones mount
the defeated ones and they sow their seed into them. And they bear the
prize for their defeat: to endure the pangs of childbirth and for the time
being to become mothers instead of fathers. At any rate, to those creatures
that are most hostile to man, the asp and the crocodile, the ichneumon is
 The sexual animal
most hateful, and the war between them I mentioned above [., .].
And ichneumons are said to be sacred to Leto and the Eileithuiai. And the
Egyptian Herakleopolitai worship them, so they say.

The battle for sexual supremacy between ichneumons recalls the sexual
behavior between male partridges: this is a violent mating ritual of domi-
nance and submission. Also, the phrase “classed as the less honorable sex”
(ἀποκρίνονται δὲ εἰς τὸ ἀτιμότερον γένος) recalls Aelian’s criticism of the
effeminacy of Italian males (ἐξ ἀνδρῶν εἰς γυναῖκας ἀποκρίνειν, .).
And yet, despite the heavily moralizing language, their sexual behavior
does not entirely debase these animals, for Aelian conceives of precisely
this aspect of their lives as a gift from nature (ἡ φύσις δέδωκεν, .), and
their miraculous ability to receive the seed of other males and to become
mothers associates them with Leto and the Eileithuiai, the traditional Greek
goddesses of childbirth. It is the very ability to become “the less honorable
sex,” in other words, that paradoxically also makes them sacred. Being
confronted with forms of biological life or ways of being that threaten the
binary opposition between masculine/feminine and male/female produces
in this case an aporetic reaction that has recourse to the divine, to myth,
or to sheer wonder. I term this the solemnizing response.
Like the ichneumon, the hare, too, is a creature of dual sex, and as
evidence Aelian offers the anecdote of an anonymous man whom he twice
praises for his trustworthiness. This man said that he had once caught a
male hare, half-dead, that was swollen as if pregnant. When he dissected the
hare, the man discovered a womb bearing three small hares that appeared
dead. The warmth of the sun, however, reanimated the baby hares (ὑπὸ
τοῦ ἡλίου ἀλεαινόμενοι, NA .) and they survived. Aelian interjects:
“proof, I think, for the wonder of the one who gave them birth” (δεῖγμα
ἐμοὶ δοκεῖν εἰς θαῦμα τοῦ τεκόντος τούτους). Entirely absent from this
chapter is the moral outrage against male creatures “debased” by partaking
in behavior deemed more appropriate for members of the female sex. On
the contrary, the hare is ennobled by having a share of each sex: so powerful
is the nurturing quality of the hare’s womb that it is associated with the
life-giving power of the sun – already established as a prominent deity
during the Severan period – and this inspires wonder instead of moral
scorn. Again, when faced with the evidence of nature, Aelian finds the
solemnizing response more appropriate than the abjective.
It is clear from the passages on the ichneumon and the hare that it is
through association with divinity that the “monstrosity” of dual sexual-
ity or transgender phenomena is transformed into something positively
 Dual sexuality and transgender phenomena 
wondrous. It is only to be expected, then, that in two relevant passages on
the swallow and the hyena Aelian refers to Teiresias, the blind prophet who
lived as both a man and a woman. The case of the swallow is not, strictly
speaking, one of dual sexuality, as was seen with the ichneumon and the
hare. Rather, the swallow offers a case where, like the men of Tarentum
and Etruria, one sex of the species behaves as if it were a member of the
opposite sex, this of course presuming the binary opposition of sex and
gender in Greek and Roman thought:
Οἱ μὲν ὄρνιθες οἱ ἕτεροι ἀναβαίνονται, ὡς λόγος, αἱ δὲ χελιδόνες οὔ, ἀλλὰ
τούτων γε ἐναντία ἡ μίξις ἐστί. καὶ τὸ αἴτιον οἶδεν ἡ φύσις. λέγει δὲ ὁ πλείων
λόγος ὅτι πεφρίκασι τὸν Τηρέα καὶ δεδοίκασι μή ποτε ἄρα προσερπύσας
λάθρᾳ εἶτα ἐργάσηται τραγῳδίαν καὶ νῦν. ἦν δὲ ἄρα καὶ τοῦτο χελιδόνι
δῶρον ἐκ τῆς φύσεως, ὥς γε ἐμὲ κρίνειν, τὸ τιμιώτατον· πηρωθεῖσα τὴν
ὄψιν περόναις ἐὰν τύχῃ, ὁρᾷ αὖθις. τί οὖν ἔτι τὸν Τειρεσίαν ᾄδομεν, καίτοι
μὴ ἐνταυθοῖ, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν ῞Αιδου σοφώτατον ψυχῶν, ὡς ῞Ομηρος λέγει;
(NA .)
Different birds are mounted, so the story goes, but not the swallows: for
these birds, intercourse is face-to-face. And nature knows the reason. But
the more widespread story is that they tremble at Tereus and fear lest, ever
creeping up in secret, he then perform a tragedy even now. But this too is
for the swallow, as I at least reckon it, the most valuable gift from nature:
if its eyes ever happen to be maimed with pins, it sees again. Why, then,
do we still celebrate Teiresias, even though he is not here, but is, as Homer
says, the wisest soul in the house of Hades?
The narrative once again motivates the solemnizing response. The active
sexual behavior of female swallows that refuse to be mounted remains
for Aelian a mysterious phenomenon; only nature knows why it happens.
What Aelian offers instead is mythological interpretation. It must be rec-
ognized that Aelian has here an opportunity for moral censure. Instead,
though, Aelian turns toward emotional complexity, evoking the tragedy
(τραγῳδίαν) of the myth of Prokne, Philomela, and Tereus, a story pop-
ular in the literature of the Empire and characterized by rape, deceit, and
murder. With this violent myth in mind, Aelian understands that the
unconventional sexual behavior of the female swallows arises from fear
(πεφρίκασι, δεδοίκασι) that the same tragedy will repeat itself. The addi-
tional notice that the swallow is able to regain its sight after it has been
blinded finally establishes the bird’s connection with the blind prophet
Teiresias, whose reputation frankly suffers by comparison with that of the
bird: the swallow, according to Aelian, should inspire more wonder than
the figure from myth. Granted, the connection with Teiresias arises from
 The sexual animal
the motif of blindness, but the swallow’s transgendered behavior reinforces
the connection.
In his structuralist study of androgyny and hermaphroditism in Greek
and Roman thought, Luc Brisson has shown that Teiresias’ dual sexuality
is essentially related to his gift of prophecy: “Because Tiresias, through
divination, establishes relations between human beings and gods, Tiresias
must also, in his very person, successively, as he-she passes from one sex to
the other, transcend the most important opposition of all for the human
race, which is divided between the masculine and the feminine.” Brisson
also offers a “brief bestiary” of animals associated with Teiresias, frequently
drawing on relevant passages from the NA. The ambiguity that character-
izes Teiresias “spreads to the animal world,” and it is cosmically pervasive
because, as Brisson sees it, “essential oppositions are maintained only at
the point where they are bypassed.” In Brisson’s reading, then, figures like
Teiresias, the ichneumon, the hare, and the swallow produce the solemniz-
ing response – that is, they elicit wonder rather than disgust – because they
act as mediators, ultimately reifying the binary system which they only
apparently disrupt.
Brisson’s theorization is, however, helpful only to a limited extent, as
it attempts to understand the solemnizing response by means of a return
to an ordered system that reinstates binary oppositions. A different inter-
pretative strategy is called for, I argue, when dealing with a text like the
NA, which mediates the Greek literary tradition to produce not an ordered
system, but something quite different: a multiplicity of fragmented experi-
ences and even a rejection of the rational. This last statement might seem
excessive, and cautious readers will wonder how I could claim that a writer
so influenced by Stoic philosophy would reject the rational. In Chapter ,
however, I showed that, while one may find numerous elements of Stoic
thought in the NA, in no way should Aelian be considered dogmatically
Stoic, especially in his treatments of logos and his adoption of paradoxogra-
phy as his favored literary genre. This philosophical background is relevant
for considering Aelian’s brief chapter on the dual sexuality of the hyena:
Τὴν ὕαιναν τῆτες μὲν ἄρρενα εἰ θεάσαιο, τὴν αὐτὴν εἰς νέωτα ὄψει θῆλυν·
εἰ δὲ θῆλυν νῦν, μετὰ ταῦτα ἄρρενα· κοινωνοῦσί τε ἀφροδίτης ἑκατέρας,
καὶ γαμοῦσί τε καὶ γαμοῦνται, ἀνὰ ἔτος πᾶν ἀμείβουσαι τὸ γένος. οὐκοῦν
τὸν Καινέα καὶ τὸν Τειρεσίαν ἀρχαίους ἀπέδειξε τὸ ζῷον τοῦτο οὐ κόμποις
ἀλλὰ τοῖς ἔργοις αὐτοῖς. (NA .)
 Brisson : .
 These are NA . and . (the mouse); . (the hyena); and . (the ichneumon). Brisson does
not discuss NA . (the swallow).
 Dual sexuality and transgender phenomena 
If you should see a hyena this year that is male, the same one next year you
will see as a female. And if female now, after this, male. And they have a
share of each kind of sexual desire, and in mating they are both active and
passive, each year changing sex. Accordingly, this creature proves Kaineus
and Teiresias to be old-fashioned not by means of boasts but by means of
its very actions.
The story of the hyena’s dual sexuality was well known in antiquity.
Aristotle, however, in both the De generatione animalium and the Historia
animalium, sought to put the story to rest with the reasoned explanation
that what seemed like the hyena’s possession of both male and female
genitalia was really just an optical illusion:
ὦπται γὰρ ἡ ὕαινα ἓν ἔχουσα αἰδοῖον· ἐν ἐνίοις γὰρ τόποις οὐ σπάνις τῆς
θεωρίας· ἀλλ’ ἔχουσιν αἱ ὕαιναι ὑπὸ τὴν κέρκον ὁμοίαν γραμμὴν τῷ τοῦ
θήλεος αἰδοίῳ. ἔχουσι μὲν οὖν καὶ οἱ ἄρρενες καὶ αἱ θήλειαι τὸ τοιοῦτον
σημεῖον, ἀλλ’ ἁλίσκονται οἱ ἄρρενες μᾶλλον· διὸ τοῖς ἐκ παρόδου θεωροῦσι
ταύτην ἐποίησε τὴν δόξαν. (Arist. GA ., a–)
For the hyena has been seen possessing one type of genital. For in some
places there is no lack of observation. But hyenas have under their tail a
line that resembles the genitals of the female. Both males and females, then,
have such a mark, but males are caught more often, which is why it gave
this opinion to those who apply only a cursory inspection.
περὶ δὲ τῶν αἰδοίων ὃ λέγεται, ὡς ἔχει ἄρρενος καὶ θηλείας, ψεῦδός ἐστιν.
ἀλλ’ ἔχει τὸ μὲν τοῦ ἄρρενος ὅμοιον τῷ τῶν λύκων καὶ τῶν κυνῶν, τὸ δὲ
δοκοῦν θηλείας εἶναι ὑποκάτω μὲν ἔχει τῆς κέρκου, παραπλήσιον δ’ ἐστὶ τῷ
σχήματι τῷ τοῦ θήλεος, οὐκ ἔχει μέντοι οὐδένα πόρον· ὑποκάτω δ’ αὐτοῦ
ἐστιν ὁ τῆς περιττώσεως πόρος. ἡ δὲ θήλεια ὕαινα ἔχει μὲν καὶ τὸ ὅμοιον
τῷ τῆς θηλείας λεγομένῳ αἰδοίῳ, ἔχει δ’ ὥσπερ ὁ ἄρρην αὐτὸ ὑποκάτω
τῆς κέρκου, πόρον δ’ οὐδένα ἔχει· μετὰ δὲ τοῦτο ὁ τῆς περιττώσεώς ἐστι
πόρος, ὑποκάτω δὲ τούτου τὸ ἀληθινὸν αἰδοῖον. (Arist. HA b–)
But what is said about its genitals, that it has those of both a male and
female, is not true. Rather, the part of the male is like that of wolves and
dogs; the part that seems to be of the female is underneath the tail, and it
is very similar in shape to that of the female; it does not, however, have any
passage. And beneath that is the passage for excretion. And the female hyena
has also that which is similar to what is said to be the female genital, and
she, just like the male, has this beneath the tail, and it has no passage. And
after this is the passage for excrement. And beneath this, the true genital.

 Ov. Met. .–; Plin. Nat. ., .; Rufinus, Recognitiones Pseudoclementinae .; Opp. C.
.–. For a discussion of the hare, hyena, and sexual deviance in the writings of early Christian
moralists, see Boswell : –.
 The sexual animal
Diodoros of Sicily, following Aristotle, also rejected the story of the hyena’s
dual sexuality. Alternative accounts were therefore in circulation by the
time Aelian was writing in the early third century ce, the one perpetuating
the story of the hyena’s dual sexuality, the other debunking it as erroneous.
Nowhere in the NA, however, does Aelian introduce the refutation artic-
ulated by Aristotle and Diodoros. Though it is uncertain whether Aelian
would have read the passage as it appears in Diodoros or the original
passages by Aristotle, it has been established that Aelian worked from the
epitome of Aristotle’s Historia animalium by Aristophanes of Byzantium,
who duly preserved for Aelian the truth about the hyena’s differentiated
sex: “And both the female and the male have their genitals also beneath
their tail and a rather odd sunken region; they say it does not have a pas-
sage” (ἔχει δὲ καὶ ὑπὸ τὴν κέρκον τὰ αἰδοῖα καὶ ὁ ἄρρην καὶ ἡ θήλεια καὶ
περισσότερόν τινα τόπον ἔγκοιλον, πόρον μὴ ἔχοντά φασι, Epit. .) –
lacking a “passage,” the hyena’s additional “sunken region” has no func-
tional role in reproduction, but presents only the appearance of additional
genitalia. Faced with a choice, however, Aelian decides that the world is
more interesting when a hyena has both male and female genitalia and
he therefore ignores his Aristotelian source, rejecting the rational expla-
nation. Aelian’s probable suppression of the more reasonable explanation
accords, of course, with the paradoxographical tendencies of the NA, a
text that regularly strives to elicit a response of wonder from its readers
and thereby to flout Stoic dogma, which demanded its practitioners to
approach ta phusika with reason, not with wonder. But this is not a “mere”
literary explanation for Aelian’s perpetuation of the story of the hyena’s dual
sexuality. Genre itself communicates an ideological position – this despite
Aelian’s overt rejection of a totalizing ideological narrative. Accordingly, we
must understand this chapter on the hyena not just as a compiler’s passive
handing-down of traditional lore, but as Aelian’s willful (re)writing into
existence of an animal’s intersex body at the expense of rational argument.
So persistent and energetic is Aelian’s turn toward the marvelous in
the NA, that I resist the notion (pace Brisson) that the paradoxographical
quality of the text serves only to reinforce normative thinking about sex
and gender in third-century Rome. Instead, I argue, the NA – its focus
so trained on the incoherent and the disruptive – offers a textual site
that explores the discursive construction of the natural world, and thereby
undermines the essentialism of the binary oppositions male/female and

 D.S. ..– (Phot. Bibl. codex , a–). See Brisson : –.
 De Stefani b: –.
 Dual sexuality and transgender phenomena 
masculine/feminine. For Aelian, nature and culture are fluid. This book
has largely focused on Aelian’s countercultural literary persona and how the
NA invites polyphony and multiplicities, even while it is itself a product
of Rome’s political dominance and the cultural dominance of Hellenism.
My approach has been encouraged by the summary statements of Aelian
himself, when in his epilogue he anticipates the criticisms of peers who not
only will take issue with his work’s luxuriant poikilia, but who also “will
find fault if I set aside my free time for these things, when it is possible
to raise my brow in arrogance and to appear in palaces and to come
into great wealth” (δι’ αἰτίας ἕξουσιν, εἰ τὴν ἐμαυτοῦ σχολὴν κατεθέμην
ἐς ταῦτα, ἐξὸν καὶ ὠφρυῶσθαι καὶ ἐν ταῖς αὐλαῖς ἐξετάζεσθαι καὶ ἐπὶ
μέγα προήκειν πλούτου, NA ep., p. , lines –). Aelian encourages
readers to receive his text as a disavowal of normative expectations, even,
I argue, in its representations of gender and sexed bodies. In telling these
stories of the ichneumon, hare, hyena, and swallow, Aelian may even have
been reminded of the philosopher-sophist Favorinus of Arelate. Though he
never knew him personally (Favorinus died shortly before Aelian was born),
Favorinus was famous and controversial: he had a successful, international
career as an orator, despite that he was both male and female (androthêlus),
born with dual sexuality (diphuês), and his effeminate delivery and shrill
voice were the objects of both fascination and criticism. Aelian, himself
conscious of his own limited abilities in declamation, probably also felt
an affinity with Favorinus as a practitioner of literary poikilia: Favorinus’
Varied history (Παντοδαπὴ ἱστορία) was certainly an influence on Aelian’s
own work.
Some will perhaps object that my interpretation is anachronistic, an
instance of poststructuralist presentism, imposing a queer sexual politics
upon a work that, when seen in context, is actually very much of its time
and a literary valorization of mainstream Hellenism. Aelian’s text certainly
was popular in its day and had a long Nachleben into the late Byzantine
period, phenomena suggestive, perhaps, that the NA was not the disruptive
text I assert it to be. To such an objection, however, I counter that the
ideologically disruptive qualities of the text persist in spite of the text’s
mainstream popularity and continue – insidiously – to pose interpretative
problems for conservative readers who would continue to demand the
certainties of normative sex and gender. One powerful testimony to the
 Cf. Sedgwick : –.
 Philostr. VS –. See Barigazzi , ; Gleason ; Holford-Strevens ; and Keulen
: –.
 Philostr. VS .
 The sexual animal
text’s longevity is also, paradoxically, evidence of its continued threat to
intelligibility: a fifteenth-century manuscript attests to the late Byzantine
practice of thematically reordering the chapters of the NA so that all of
Aelian’s descriptions of a single animal would be tidily grouped together
under a single heading. This late Byzantine attempt to impose order
upon an unruly text also, it will be noted, eradicates from the work the
aesthetic poikilia that could be associated with effeminacy and that therefore
impugned the text’s masculine authority (see Chapter ). A critical probing
of normative sex and gender were – even if latently so – an inherent part
of the NA from its very inception.
Paradoxography works according to a principle of disruption, by seek-
ing out and embracing those things that threaten intelligibility. This
disruptive quality is compounded when the paradoxographical mode is
incorporated within a collection that rejects orderly structure. Other gen-
res, especially invective (think of the Indictment of the Little Woman),
reinforce that intelligibility, putting things in their “proper” place. It is to
be expected therefore that the NA, an extravagant expression of poikilia
synthesizing multiple literary genres, would be penetrated by the nor-
mative discourse on sex and gender and thereby perpetuate the abjective
response to that which bears the potential for disruption. But when the
abjective response is interpolated within a text that defines itself according
to disruption, the abjective response manifestly fails as an instrument of
power, insofar as it is clearly impotent to silence or to impose order upon
the maelstrom of surrounding disruptive narratives. In paradoxography,
the solemnizing response celebrating the disruptive becomes itself the nor-
mative mode. However loud Aelian’s voice may be at its most stridently
abjective – whether condemning Epicureans, the emperor Elagabalus, or
the effeminate men of Tarentum and Etruria – the NA exists, with its
luxurious poikilia, to overwhelm, consume, and thereby render that voice
nearly unintelligible.

Interspecies eroticism and monstrosities of reciprocal desire

The third category of erotic discourse that I have identified in the NA,
and the theme with which the remainder of this chapter is concerned, is

 This is Laurentianus , (F). See De Stefani ; Scholfield : xxv; González Suárez ; and
GLR xv.
 See Hansen : , on Phlegon of Tralles. I here adopt some of the vocabulary offered by Judith
Butler for my queer reading of paradoxography (Salih and Butler : ).
 Interspecies eroticism and reciprocal desire 
the expression of sexual desire between animals of different species. Of
the  entries in the NA that deal with sex or erôs,  (or %) deal with
interspecies eroticism, and  of those discuss sexual or erotic relationships
between animals and humans. This is surprising and commands atten-
tion, for these relationships offer a direct point of contact between the
two stated subjects of Aelian’s text: the world of animals and the world of
humans. As these episodes demonstrate, the separation between worlds
is not so clearly demarcated as perhaps we would like to believe when it
comes to sexual desire; revealing the natural laws of sex as mere convention,
erôs transcends and dissolves the boundary between animal and human.
These human/animal erotic relationships receive a variety of treatments
in the NA. Some are offered in catalogue form within a single entry,
but others receive some of the most elaborate narrative treatments in the
whole of the collection. These are the stories of two dolphin/boy pairs
(., .), the white elephant and his Indian trainer (.), the Judaean
woman loved by a snake (.), the Sybarite goatherd and his pretty she-
goat (.), and the Athenian boy Sokles and his salacious horse (.).
In these stories, the erôs between human and animal may be problematic
or idealized, physical or spiritual, asymmetrical or symmetrical.
When erôs defines the relationship between human and animal, the
results are ambiguous: some of the human partners become bestial by
their erotic association with animals, while some animals are elevated by
their participation in erôs with a human partner. Aelian thus seems to rein-
force the Stoic categorization whereby humans are elevated above irrational
beasts. This distinction is suspicious in a text that otherwise idealizes ani-
mals in their natural state. I suggest, however, that for Aelian, the difference
between animal and human in the realm of the erotic resides in the style
in which one responds to erôs. Sensual indulgence is morally corrupt;
conversely, when it is properly stylized as spiritual and unphysical, erôs
represents a philosophical ideal. So far, Aelian appears to uphold the clas-
sical Platonic paradigm of a chaste, heavenly erôs. But Aelian is a slippery
writer, and his idealization of a physically chaste, Platonic erôs is a sophistic
 On the assimilation of zoophilia in Greek art to modes of representing human erotic relationships,
see Alexandridis : –. On the human–animal romances in Aelian, see French : .
 Erotic relationships between animals and humans: ., –; .; .; ., , ; .; ., ,
, , , ; ., ; ., ; ., ; .. Other narratives of interspecies eroticism: ., ;
.; .; .; .; ..
 This aspect of Aelian’s collection interests Hübner as well, though he restricts his discussion to
narratives of animal philanthrôpia; see Hübner : –.
 See NA ., ., ., ., and .. On depictions of Glauke and the goose in Hellenistic art, see
Thompson .
 On NA . and , see Korhonen : –.  Cf. D.L. ..
 The sexual animal
artifice. One reader may take that facade at face value, but Aelian’s allusive
prose offers other readers opportunities to look beneath his moralizing
superstructure. In the insistence that there is no sexual impropriety in such
an idealized romance as that between, say, a boy and his dolphin, Aelian
hints at alternative possibilities and the “monstrous” truths of sex that lurk
beneath the surface. Facilitated by the text’s artfully random structure and
by its luxuriant poikilia, this ludic quality becomes a defining characteristic
of the erotic stories in the NA.
The suspicions of sexual behavior that arouse moral criticism in the
NA are paradigmatically illustrated by the Athenian story of Sokles and
his horse, while two boy/dolphin romances are conceived according to an
ideal erôs and anterôs. Finally, the competing erotic narratives about the
boy Nerites – though technically not examples of interspecies eroticism –
function as Aelian’s mythological manifesto on the essentially ambiguous
nature of erôs and as an indication of the hermeneutic sophistication that
readers must bring to Aelian’s text.

Sokles and his horse

The story of the Athenian boy Sokles and his horse in Book  is an interest-
ing case, as it represents a relationship that has the potential of becoming an
idealized romance, but which is aborted when public suspicion is aroused
about the physical nature of the relationship. Aelian begins the narrative
as an excursus on the goodwill (eunoia) and friendship (philia) that horses
are capable of exhibiting towards owners who act as benefactors and who
exhibit care for their creatures. But the salacious story of Sokles that follows
instead charts erôs gone wrong. The narrative first establishes the symmetry
of physical beauty typical of romance, as we are told that the beautiful boy
bought a horse that was itself beautiful. But, Aelian says, this horse, which
was intensely erotic and more clever than other horses, conceives an acute
erôs for his master. When the boy would approach, the horse used to snort
and leap (ἐφριμάττετο, ., p. , line ); when the boy would clap
his hands, the horse would whinny and prance (ἐφρυάττετο); when the
boy would mount, the horse readily offered himself (ἀναβαίνοντος ἑαυτὸν
παρεῖχεν εὐπειθῆ, line ); when the boy stood in front of him, the horse
would look at him with melting eyes (ὑγρὸν ἑώρα, line ).
 Korhonen : – emphasizes the elasticity of the terms erôs and philia in Aelian’s erotic
narratives; my own position is that Aelian’s calculatedly ambigious erotic language pushes the reader
to confront varying degrees of human–animal emotional and and even physical entanglement.
 Konstan : –.
 Interspecies eroticism and reciprocal desire 
Though it seems harmless and merely charming, the horse’s behavior
suggests a dangerous physicality and a morally dubious disposition. First,
the verb φριμάττεσθαι (“to snort and leap”) connotes the response of
sexually aroused animals. In Herodotus, the verb is used of a horse after
smelling the scent of a mare’s genitalia on the hand of Dareios’ groom
(τὸν δὲ αἰσθόμενον φριμάξασθαί τε καὶ χρεμετίσαι, Hdt. .). This is also
the verb used by Theocritus to describe the randy goats of the goatherd
Komatas in the hypersexual fifth Idyll (φριμάσσεο, πᾶσα τραγίσκων | νῦν
ἀγέλα, Theoc. .–). Second, the verb φρυάττεσθαι (“to whinny and
prance”) is frequently used as a metaphor for insolent behavior in erotic
contexts.
Third, apart from the obvious sexual innuendo in the boy’s “mounting”
of the horse (ἀναβαίνοντος), the description of the erotic horse as εὐπει-
θής evokes the obedient horse of the tripartite soul in Plato’s Phaedrus. In
this locus classicus of erotic literature, the obedient horse, a metaphor for
the spiritual self-control of the erastês, is compelled by a sense of shame to
prevent itself from leaping at the erômenos (ὁ μὲν εὐπειθὴς τῷ ἡνιόχῳ τῶν
ἵππων, ἀεί τε καὶ τότε αἰδοῖ βιαζόμενος, ἑαυτὸν κατέχει μὴ ἐπιπηδᾶν τῷ
ἐρωμένῳ, Pl. Phdr. a). He is contrasted, of course, with his yoke-mate,
who “has no further regard for the goads of the charioteer or for the whip,
but leaping rushes violently, and causing trouble for both his yoke-mate
and the charioteer compels them to advance towards the beloved and to
recall the delight of sexual pleasure” (a). The charioteer of the soul is
only able to rein in his team of horses when he remembers true beauty
and sôphrosunê, and if the charioteer fails to remember true beauty and
sôphrosunê, then the erastês is at risk of committing some sexual outrage
upon the body of his erômenos. The Platonic intertext invites suspicions
about this particular horse’s obliging disposition whenever Sokles wants
to mount him: it remains unclear whether his obedience is motivated by
sôphrosunê or by sexual pleasure.
The horse’s behavior, though it was already erotic, nevertheless seemed
delightful (καὶ ταῦτα μὲν ἐρωτικὰ ὄντα ἤδη ὅμως τερπνὰ ἐδόκει, NA
., p. , lines –). This is the narrative hint whereby we might
speculate about the erotic interests of Sokles himself for his frisky horse:
 Alciphr. .; Anthologia Palatina . (Meleager); ῎Ερωτες . . . σκῦλα φρυασσόμενοι, Anthologia
Planudea  (Philippos).
 On ἀναβαίνειν as a euphemism for sexual congress, see Ar. fr. , ἀναβῆναι τὴν γυναῖκα βούλομαι,
and Pherekrates .; “This usage is usually limited to animal copulation” (Henderson : ).
 Gaca : – reads this passage as part of Plato’s programmatic attempt to regulate human
sexual desire. Belfiore :  emphasizes Socrates’ ambiguous, satyr-like representation of the
horse. See also Davidson : –.
 The sexual animal
how far is the boy willing to go to gratify his equine erastês? Had the
pair conducted themselves with more modesty in public, we might never
have known about the covert sexual realities of their relationship. Their
sexuality, however, cannot be concealed, for “the horse began to be more
reckless, because he was even desiring to do something to the young man,
and a rather monstrous story about the pair began to spread” (ἦν ὥς τι καὶ
δρασείων εἰς τὸ μειράκιον προπετέστερος, καὶ διέρρει λόγος ὑπὲρ ἀμφοῖν
ἀτοπώτερος, lines –). Sokles, finding the slander unbearable, sells the
horse, “on the grounds that he hated a lover who cannot control himself”
(ὡς ἐραστὴν ἀκόλαστον μισήσας, lines –). But there is ambiguity
in this last participial phrase, for in addition to conveying the ground of
belief on which Sokles is acting, the particle ὡς may also convey a pretext
for selling the horse. But such a pretext, generated only by the gossip of
the Athenians and allowing Sokles to maintain his dignity, paradoxically
ends up confirming the suspicions about the sexual nature of the boy’s
relationship with his horse: had it not been for the rumours, Sokles would
have kept quiet and continued to enjoy potentially illicit pleasures with
his equine companion. On this interpretation, we might infer that Sokles
was not really opposed at all either to the erotic attentions of his horse or
to the sexual activity that the horse was plotting. Sokles may even have
felt a reciprocal erôs for the horse. The public shame aroused by the overt
sexuality of the relationship, however, compels Sokles to perform for the
critical Athenian public the socially sanctioned role of sôphrôn erômenos,
the boy who does not himself succumb to the pleasures of a passive erôs, but
who behaves with moderation, preserving his chastity. Selling the horse and
declaring that he hates a lover who cannot control himself, Sokles clears
his reputation of any suspicion of sexual impropriety. One is reminded of
Plutarch’s anecdote about Periandros, the tyrant of Ambrakia, who, when
he publicly asked his erômenos, “Aren’t you pregnant yet?” was in turn
killed by the humiliated young man (Amatorius f ). Until that public
utterance, though, the young man had apparently been complicit in his
sexual relationship with Periandros and had perhaps even taken pleasure
in the sexually receptive role. In the case of both Aelian’s narrative and
the Plutarchan anecdote, sex is only licit when it remains unseen and
unspoken. But instead of leaving us with the image of a hypocritically
triumphant Sokles, Aelian concludes his narrative with the tragic image of
the lovesick horse: “incapable of enduring the separation from the beautiful

 On Aelian’s narratives of human–animal affection as “sublimated pederastic relationships,” see

Korhonen : –.
 Interspecies eroticism and reciprocal desire 
boy, he set himself free from living by means of a most violent starvation”
(οὐ φέρων τὴν ἐρημίαν τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ καλοῦ, ἑαυτὸν τοῦ ζῆν ἀπήλλαξε
λιμῷ βιαιοτάτῳ, NA ., p. , lines –). Conservative Athenian
sexual morality is preserved, but Aelian is mindful of the costs.

Boys and their dolphins

The failed romance between Sokles and his horse is to be contrasted with
the idealized romances between two boys and their dolphins. Such stories
were a commonplace in the tradition of animal lore: in addition to the
famous story of Arion and the dolphin who rescued him from pirates,
Aelian notes parallel stories from Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemaios
II and also from Puteoli in Italy (.). But the stories of the boys from the
Aegean island of Poroselene (.) and from the Karian town of Iasos (.)
stand out in Aelian’s collection for their elaborate narrative form.
In the case of the boy from Poroselene, Aelian provides the eyewitness
account of Leonidas of Byzantium. An old island couple once nurtured a
local dolphin in their harbor, offering it the most enticing bait, and Aelian
even refers to the dolphin as their “foster child” (τρόφιμον, NA ., p. ,
line ). This couple also had a child of their own who was raised alongside
the tame dolphin, and, says Aelian, “somehow from being brought up
together both human and animal, unawares, came to have an erôs for one
another, and – this indeed is what is celebrated – an exceedingly holy
anterôs was held in honour among the aforementioned” (καί πως ἐκ τῆς
συντροφίας ἐλαθέτην ἐς ἔρωτα ἀλλήλων ὑπελθόντε ὅ τε ἄνθρωπος καὶ
τὸ ζῷον, καί, τοῦτο δὴ τὸ ᾀδόμενον, ὑπέρσεμνος ἀντέρως ἐτιμᾶτο ἐν τοῖς
προειρημένοις, lines –). When mature (τέλειος ὤν, line ), the dolphin
began to repay his foster parents for nurturing him, not only by bringing
back to them fish from the sea, but also by performing a number of aquatic
exercises with the boy, now no longer a mere pais (a “boy” generally) but a
more mature meirakion (around the age of ). When the boy would call
to him, the dolphin would cease whatever he was doing to swim to the
boy’s side, darting through the water “like a ship under way with a great
surge of waves” (δίκην ἐλαυνομένης νεὼς πολλῷ τῷ ῥοθίῳ, line ). Aelian
continues:

 On the tradition of romantic intimacy between dolphins and boys, see also Arist. HA a–,
Plin. Nat. ., Plin. Ep. ., and Gel. ..
 Hdt. .–. Aelian treats Arion at NA .. See also Bowra .
 The sexual animal
καὶ πλησίον τῶν παιδικῶν γενόμενος συμπαίστης τε ἦν καὶ συνεσκίρτα,
καὶ πῇ μὲν τῷ παιδὶ παρενήχετο, πῇ δὲ ὁ δελφὶς οἷα προκαλούμενος εἶτα
μέντοι εἰς τὴν ἅμιλλαν τὴν εἰς αὐτὸν τὰ παιδικὰ ὑπῆγε. καὶ τὸ ἔτι θαῦμα,
ἀπέστη καὶ τῆς πρώτης ποτὲ καὶ δὴ καὶ ὑπενήξατο αὐτῷ, οἷα νικώμενος
ἡδέως δήπου. (NA ., p. , line –p. , line )
And coming to the side of his beloved, he was his playmate and leapt together
with him, and sometimes he would swim alongside the boy, and sometimes
the dolphin, as though challenging, would indeed then draw his beloved
into a contest with him. And this was a further wonder: the dolphin gave up
the first place sometimes and indeed even swam second to him, as though
pleased to be defeated, I suppose.
These performances in the harbor of Poroselene became famous, and to
those who sailed there, the spectacle (ὅραμα, p. , line ) was thought to
be among the city’s highlights.
The parallel story in Book  of a dolphin and a boy from Iasos, however,
though also representing an idealized erôs, takes an unexpectedly tragic
turn. In fact, despite the idealized erôs that the story represents, the tragedy
may be said to arise from the introduction of a more physical element into
the relationship between boy and dolphin. In this sense the story from Iasos
should be understood as a hybrid narrative, blending the apparently chaste,
idealized erôs of boy and dolphin with the sexual imagery that characterized
the relationship between Sokles and his frisky horse. The physicality of this
erôs is signaled first by the context out of which this relationship arose:
“the gymnasium of the people of Iasos is situated right upon the sea, and
the ephebes in fact, after their running and wrestling, go down there and
wash themselves, in accordance with an ancient custom” (τὸ γυμνάσιον τὸ
τῶν ᾿Ιασέων ἐπίκειται τῇ θαλάσσῃ, καὶ οἵ γε ἔφηβοι μετὰ τοὺς δρόμους
καὶ τὰς κονίστρας κατιόντες ἐνταῦθα ἀπολούονται κατά τι ἔθος ἀρχαῖον,
NA ., p. , lines –). The image of the naked, toned bodies of the
ephebes offers a context for the emergence of erôs whose quality is different
from that of the preceding story. In Poroselene, the erôs between boy and
dolphin grew out of a family context: the pair was raised together and their
erotic relationship developed slowly over time. In Iasos, however, the erôs
of the dolphin is brought on instantaneously by the vision of the naked
young men fresh from exercise: “with a most acute erôs, a dolphin falls in
love with one remarkable for his beauty” (ἑνὸς τοῦ τὴν ὥραν ἐκπρεποῦς
ἐρᾷ δελφὶς ἔρωτα δριμύτατον, lines –).
 Plutarch, referring to the same story, denies the possibility of real eroticism between dolphin and
boy (De sollertia animalium .e). For the erotic attraction of boys fresh from the gymnasium,
cf. Theoc. .–, Chariton .., and Anthologia Palatina . (Strato).
 Interspecies eroticism and reciprocal desire 
Imagistic and linguistic echoes of the story of Sokles and the Athenian
horse reinforce the physicality of this scene. In describing the erôs of this
dolphin, for example, Aelian uses almost exactly the same language with
which he described the erôs of the horse for the boy Sokles (ἐρᾷ τοῦ δεσπό-
του δριμύτατα, NA ., p. , line ). But whereas Aelian emphasized
the monstrous quality of the horse’s erôs, here he indicates that this same
acute erôs had a very different outcome, for the dolphin “by means of their
constant intercourse induced an intimacy and a powerful goodwill from
the boy toward himself ” (τῇ συνηθείᾳ φιλίαν τινὰ καὶ εὔνοιαν εἰς ἑαυτὸν
ἐκ τοῦ παιδὸς ἰσχυρὰν ἐπηγάγετο, ., p. , line –p. , line ).
These, the reader will remember, are the same ideal qualities shown by
horses lucky enough to have owners who care for them (cf. ἀμείβεται τὸν
εὐεργέτην εὐνοίᾳ τε καὶ φιλίᾳ, ., p. , lines –), ideals that the lusty
horse belonging to Sokles does not get the opportunity to demonstrate.
Furthermore, the playful sporting wherein “the boy, mounting the dolphin
like a rider upon a young horse, used to sit upon him splendidly while
his erastês swam beneath him” (ὁ παῖς ἀναβαίνων ὡς πῶλον ἱππότης,
ὑπονηχομένου τοῦ ἐραστοῦ γαῦρος ἐφέζετο, ..–) clearly recalls the
too easy mounting of the horse by Sokles (ἀναβαίνοντος ἑαυτὸν παρεῖχεν
εὐπειθῆ, ., p. , line ).
But whereas it is only ever implied by Aelian that Sokles shared the
erotic feelings of his horse, Aelian here explicitly marks the erôs between
boy and dolphin as being reciprocal. It is precisely this emotional and
physical reciprocity, though, that invites their own destruction: “not long
afterwards, however, even this reciprocal/rival lover was overcome by divine
envy” (οὐ μέντοι μετὰ μακρὸν καὶ οὗτος ὁ ἀντερῶν ἡττήθη τοῦ φθόνου, NA
., p. , lines –). I will return in the next section to the connection
in Aelian’s thought between anterôs (“reciprocal love/erotic rivalry”) and
divine envy, but for the moment it is worth considering the outrageous,
tragicomic conclusion of the boy’s romance with the dolphin:

ἔτυχε γοῦν ὁ παῖς πλείω γυμνασάμενος, καὶ καμὼν ἑαυτὸν τῷ ὀχοῦντι

κατὰ τὴν γαστέρα ἐπιβάλλει, καί πως ἔτυχεν ἡ τοῦ ζῴου ἄκανθα ἡ
κατὰ τοῦ νώτου ὀρθὴ οὖσα, καὶ τῷ ὡραίῳ τὸν ὀμφαλὸν κεντεῖ. εἶτά
τινες φλέβες ὑπορρήγνυνται, καὶ αἵματος ἔπειτα ῥοὴ πολλή, καὶ ὁ παῖς
ἐνταῦθα ἀποθνήσκει. ὅπερ οὖν ὁ δελφὶς συναισθόμενος . . . καὶ θεασά
μενος πορφυροῦν ἐκ τοῦ αἵματος τὸ πέλαγος, τὸ πραχθὲν συνῆκε καὶ
ἐπιβιῶναι τοῖς παιδικοῖς οὐκ ἐτόλμησε. πολλῇ τοίνυν τῇ ῥώμῃ χρησά
μενος, ὥσπερ οὖν ῥοθίῳ σκάφος, εἶτα ἑαυτὸν εἰς τοὺς αἰγιαλοὺς ἑλκὼν
ἐξέβρασε, καὶ τὸν νεκρὸν συνεξήνεγκε, καὶ ἔκειντο ἄμφω ὃ μὲν τεθνεώς, ὃ δὲ
ψυχορραγῶν. (NA ., p. , lines –)
 The sexual animal
The boy at any rate happened to exercise too much in the gymnasium,
and, worn out, he threw himself belly downwards upon his carrier, and
somehow the spiny thorn on the creature’s back happened to be erect, and it
pierced the beautiful boy’s navel. Accordingly, some arteries were cut from
beneath and there was then a great flow of blood, and the boy died there.
The dolphin, therefore, when he became aware of it . . . and seeing the sea
growing purple from the blood, he understood what had been done and he
did not have the courage to survive his beloved. Then using much strength,
like a ship carried by dashing waves, then dragging cast himself upon the
shore, and he brought the boy’s corpse out of the water with himself, and
they both lay there, the one already dead, the other letting his soul break
loose from life.
Unlike the exceedingly holy and consequently benign anterôs of the boy
and dolphin couple from Poroselene, the anterôs binding the pair from
Iasos has a greater narrative intensity because of its injection of horsy
sexuality. As I mentioned above, Aelian’s account intermingles elements
from both comedy and tragedy. The outrageous image, for example, of
the boy’s piercing by the dolphin’s erect dorsal spine is described with
the word κεντεῖν, a verb whose sexual innuendo was established by the
poets of Athenian comedy. But the comedy is offset, if not enhanced,
by the solemn narrative tone and by the tragic diction of a Euripidean
verb like ψυχορραγεῖν, describing the dying dolphin (cf. Alc. , HF ).
However much idealized, this erôs between boy and dolphin connotes also
an excessive care for the body (πλείω γυμνασάμενος, NA ., p. , line
) that simultaneously evokes the coarse humor of comedy and finds its
ultimate consummation in tragic death.
The scene’s literary association with tragedy becomes explicit when
Aelian compares the dolphin of Iasos with the lover from Euripides’ play
Khrusippos and apostrophizes his favorite classical poet directly: “but, noble
Euripides, Laios did not do this for Khrusippos, even though, as you your-
self say and as common report teaches, he was the very first of the Greeks to
introduce the erôs for males” (Λάϊος δὲ ἐπὶ Χρυσίππῳ, ὦ καλὲ Εὐριπίδη,
τοῦτο οὐκ ἔδρασε, καίτοι τοῦ τῶν ἀρρένων ἔρωτος, ὡς λέγεις αὐτὸς καὶ
ἡ φήμη διδάσκει, ῾Ελλήνων πρώτιστος ἄρξας, ., p. , lines –).
In his reconstruction of Euripides’ lost play, William Poole has suggested
that the chorus may have advocated “fertility and marriage as a higher
goal than the sterile and violent passion of Laius,” concluding that the
play “contained the earliest example known to us in Greek literature of a
debate between exponents of heterosexual and homosexual values.” More
 Henderson : –.  See also VH ..  Poole : .
 Interspecies eroticism and reciprocal desire 
recently, James Davidson has proposed that the myth of Khrusippos may
reflect “Athenian homosexual anxieties about the proximity of Striplings
and Boys in the gymnasium.” Both Poole and Davidson therefore see
Euripides’ Khrusippos as responding to fifth-century concerns about the
morality of non-procreative sexual desire and in particular of casting the
free-born boy in the role of sexual object. Aelian’s tale, however, speaks to
a different anxiety. On the one hand, and in contrast with the dangerous
sexuality between Sokles and his horse, the anterôs between boy and dol-
phin is here given a lavish narrative eulogy, and their public activity was
enviable (ἀξιόζηλον, NA ., p. , line ) to the people of Iasos and to
foreigners alike. The story’s tragic conclusion on the other hand represents
an anxiety, abiding into the Roman Imperial period, about the seemingly
boundless capacity of boys to reciprocate the intense erôs of even the most
unlikely of lovers.

Anterôs and the myths of Nerites

Aelian further elaborates on the problematic sexuality of anterôs in a crucial
mythological narrative in Book  of the NA. His subject is the spiral-
shaped shellfish known as the nêritês, and about the origins of this shellfish
there are two accounts in circulation, both of which receive full narrative
treatment. Curiously, Aelian feels he must defend his decision: “indeed
even to tell some short stories in the midst of a long text is only to
relieve the ear and to inject some pleasure into the narrative” (καὶ μέντοι
καὶ διαμυθολογῆσαι μικρὰ ἄττα ἐν μακρᾷ τῇ συγγραφῇ οὐδὲν ἀλλ’ ἢ
διαναπαῦσαί τε τὴν ἀκοὴν καὶ ἐφηδῦναι τὸν λόγον, NA ., p. ,
lines –). Aelian begins by demonstrating that these stories deviate from
the mythological traditions of Homer and Hesiod. According to the poets,
Doris, the daughter of Okeanos, and the sea-god Nereus were the parents
of fifty daughters. But Homer and Hesiod are silent about the only son
of Doris and Nereus, the boy Nerites, the most beautiful of humans and
gods, who is sung about in “tales from the sea” (λόγοι θαλάττιοι, line ).
In the first of the two stories, Nerites is the beloved of Aphrodite, who
delighted to spend time with him in the sea. But when the time came for
Aphrodite to be enrolled among the Olympian gods at the summons of
her father, she wanted to bring Nerites along with her as her companion
 Davidson : .
 On the nêritês mollusk, see also Arist. HA a– and Opp. H. .. Athenaeus quotes verses by
Epikharmos that refer to shellfish known as anaritai (Ath. d, a). Plin. Nat. . may refer to
the nêritês. See also Thompson : , and Bermejo Barrera .
 The sexual animal
and playmate. Nerites, however, refused, preferring to remain with his
sisters and parents and rejecting a life on Olympus. Aphrodite even gave
him wings, but Nerites disdained the divine gift. Rebuffed and angered,
Aphrodite transformed Nerites into the spiral-shaped shellfish we know
today and gave his wings to Eros, choosing him instead of Nerites as her
attendant and servant.
The second story, however, declares that Poseidon fell in love with
Nerites, and that Nerites loved Poseidon in return, and that it was from
this that the famous Anteros was born (ὁ δὲ ἄλλος λόγος ἐρασθῆναι βοᾷ
Νηρίτου Ποσειδῶνα, ἀντερᾶν δὲ τοῦ Ποσειδῶνος, καὶ τοῦ γε ὑμνουμένου
᾿Αντέρωτος ἐντεῦθεν τὴν γένεσιν ὑπάρξασθαι, NA ., p. , lines –
). What follows is a scene that parallels the playful sporting of the boys
and their dolphins: the beloved spends the rest of his time with his lover
(συνδιατρίβειν οὖν τά τε ἄλλα τῷ ἐραστῇ τὸν ἐρώμενον, lines –)
and when Poseidon drives his chariot through the waves, the other sea
creatures, including dolphins, cannot keep up with the speed of his horses.
His boyfriend alone accompanies him and remains very close (μόνα δὲ ἄρα
τὰ παιδικά οἱ παρομαρτεῖν καὶ μάλα πλησίον, p. , lines –). Even this
apparently chaste vignette, however, betrays hints of sex. There is certainly
a sexual innuendo, for example, in the verb συνδιατρίβειν: Nerites is clearly
not just “spending time” with his lover. Furthermore, what does it mean
for the beloved to get “very close” (μάλα πλησίον) to his lover?
The scene begs comparison with the encomium of erôs in Plato’s Phae-
drus. The beloved, says Socrates, eventually overcomes the embarrassment
and shame of being slandered by his schoolfellows or others, since they say
that “it is disgraceful to get close to a lover” (αἰσχρὸν ἐρῶντι πλησιάζειν,
Pl. Phdr. a). That this is a sexual euphemism becomes clear shortly
afterwards, when Socrates says that the beloved is in possession of anterôs
(ἀντέρωτα ἔχων, e) and desires “to see, to touch, to be intimate, to
lie down together with” his lover, “and indeed, as is likely, he does what
happens next.” When they are in bed together (ἐν οὖν τῇ συγκοιμήσει,
e–), the boy, “swelling with a desire that he does not understand,
throws his arms around his lover and kisses him” (a), and “whenever
they lie down together, he is in such a state that he would not refuse on his
part to gratify his lover if he should ask to have it” (a–). With its own
erastês/erômenos pair, its own chariot and horses, and its commemoration
of the birth of Anteros, Aelian’s myth clearly evokes the Platonic intertext

 Henderson : .

 Interspecies eroticism and reciprocal desire 
and thereby establishes a powerful sexual subtext for the romance between
Nerites and Poseidon.
The Platonic intertext furthermore hints at the shame implicit in Ner-
ites’ choice to return the affections of his lover Poseidon: just as the anony-
mous erômenos in Socrates’ speech had to endure the embarrassing taunts
of schoolfellows and others who thought it “disgraceful to get close to a
lover,” so, one supposes, Nerites too felt the normative censure of friends
and peers for his questionable behavior. The reader will remember, too,
that Socrates offers the lavish eulogy of a boy’s anterôs for his lover in the
Phaedrus as a recantation for earlier speeches that Socrates characterizes as
immoral and blasphemous for their thesis that an erômenos should grant
sexual favors only to a cool and calculating non-lover (e–d). Socrates
conjures his idealized myth of anterôs therefore as a means of combating
or neutralizing social anxiety that there was something untoward in ped-
erastic relationships in which the boy appeared too ardent in returning the
affections of his lover. Leaving aside the social concern regarding pene-
tration and the subsequent damage done to the boy’s honor, there would
have been questions about the aesthetic judgment of a boy who found the
mature body of his lover beautiful. The bodies of boys and women were
generally acknowledged as beautiful within Greek culture and so therefore
appropriate as objects of desire. It was, however, unacceptable for a boy
or a man to conceive of sexual desire for the body of an adult male: that
the youthful Alcibiades behaved as if he had conceived of such a desire for
Socrates was a sign of his paranomia, his perversion of social conventions,
and the few epigrams by Strato (second century ce) celebrating the hirsute
bodies of boys past their prime were decidedly countercultural, exceptions
that proved the rule. Pederastic relationships may have been normative
from the Classical period onward, but the emotional and sexual reciprocity
of the erômenos for his erastês remained even up to Aelian’s time a question
fraught with moral and philosophical complications. From this perspective,
the ardent emotional and sexual involvement of Nerites with his bearded
lover Poseidon may be seen as transgressing pederastic conventions.
What follows in Aelian’s narrative disrupts the romance between Nerites
and Poseidon, for Helios was resentful and therefore turned the boy into

 On the fusion of sexual and philosophical erôs in the Phaedrus, see Halperin : –, and
Nussbaum : –. Gaca : , on the other hand, insists that for Plato sexual and
philosophical erôs remain mutually exclusive. Aelian, I contend, exploits precisely this ambiguity.
 On sexual reciprocity in Plato’s Phaedrus, see Halperin .  Foucault : –.
 Pl. Smp. e–e; Anthologia Palatina ., , , and ; on the epigrams, see Cantarella :
.
 The sexual animal
the spiral shellfish that he is now. Though the story does not provide an
explanation for the sun’s resentment and anger, the narrative silence on
this point affords Aelian the opportunity to conjecture: “if one must make
an interpretation based on lack of evidence, then Poseidon and Helios are
said to be rivals in their love for the boy” (εἰ δέ τι χρὴ συμβαλεῖν ὑπὲρ
τῶν ἀτεκμάρτων, λέγονται ἀντερᾶν Ποσειδῶν καὶ ῞Ηλιος, NA ., p. ,
lines –). This interpretation is playfully based upon the double meaning
of the word anterôs and its verbal equivalent anterân: the intense reciprocal
love between erastês and erômenos inevitably invites an erotic rivalry. Aelian
then makes a further conjecture: “and perhaps Helios was vexed because
he was moving about in the sea, and he wanted him to be numbered
not among the sea monsters, but to be borne aloft among the stars” (καὶ
ἠγανάκτει μὲν ἴσως ὁ ῞Ηλιος, ὡς ἐν θαλάττῃ φερόμενος, ἐβούλετό τε αὐτὸν
οὐκ ἐν τοῖς κήτεσιν ἀριθμεῖσθαι, ἀλλ’ ἐν ἄστροις φέρεσθαι, lines –).
The erotic implications of Aelian’s interpretation corroborate suspicions
about the boy’s putatively perverse sexual desire for Poseidon. If there was
a narrative anxiety in earlier stories about the boy’s sexual desire for horse
or dolphin, here the objectionable object of desire is not an animal, but
a monstrous figure nonetheless: the bearded adult male. Helios’ putative
wish for the boy to be borne aloft to the stars therefore reflects his wish
to transform a beastly sexual relationship with the charioteer of the sea
into something more sublime, a heavenly ascent. Helios’ failure in this
regard should be considered alongside Aphrodite’s similar failure in the
first version of the myth. Spurning a heavenly existence twice over, and
rejecting not only the sun god but also Ouranian Aphrodite herself, the
boy Nerites emphatically declares his commitment to a more earthy erotic
existence. But it is here, Aelian informs us, among the monsters, where the
exceedingly holy, celebrated anterôs is born.
Further, the boy’s transformation commemorates his physical beauty:
Aelian declares at the opening of this chapter that the boy now “is a
spiral-shaped shell in the sea, small in size, but most beautiful to look
at” (Κόχλος ἐστὶ θαλάττιος, μικρὸς μὲν τὸ μέγεθος, ἰδεῖν δὲ ὡραιότατος,
NA ., p. , lines –). A separate chapter on a similar spiral-shaped
 In a brief article on NA ., Bermejo Barrera focuses not on the anterôs between Nerites and
Poseidon but on Aelian’s treatment of Nerites as a Greek bride reluctant to leave her home and join
the household of her new husband (: ). This interpretation, while provocative, does not,
however, acknowledge that although Nerites refuses the heavenly existence offered by Aphrodite
and Helios, he is hardly reluctant to join Poseidon; on the contrary, Nerites cannot get enough of
Poseidon.
 Cf. Aelian’s version of the tragic anterôs of the Athenians Meletos and Timagoras, fr.  Hercher,
 Domingo-Forasté; see Paus. .. and Davidson .
 Interspecies eroticism and reciprocal desire 
shell, different apparently only in size, reveals more specifically what Aelian
means by “most beautiful”: “for the shell is purple, and it has also a full
spiral that has been adorned with flowers and dappled by nature. And it has
remarkable ornamentation – you’d say that it looks like a crown because
of its multicolored quality, woven in varied manner from flowers of green,
gold, and vermilion, the colors dispersed alternately at equal intervals.”
(NA .). Nerites has become, in other words, a physical specimen in
miniature of the very book that the reader holds in her hands: a garland
in bloom, an emblem of poikilia and the polychromatic gifts of Helios.
Paradoxically, however, this flowering assemblage is bound to the realm
of Poseidon to memorialize forever the reciprocal desire to which he gave
birth.
On the surface, therefore, it would appear that in all of these stories,
Aelian reinforces the Platonic ideals of a chaste erôs whose goal is not the
satisfaction of bodily desires but the philosophical contemplation of and
communion with true heavenly beauty. Sexual intercourse is discussed fre-
quently in the NA, but when it is a topic of discussion, Aelian refers to
it disparagingly as lagneia (“copulation”). Lagneia itself, however, is not
inherently repugnant, but rather the way in which it is conducted. When
an exhibition is made of sex or when it is indiscriminate or immoderate,
lagneia is censured, as are those creatures that are lagnistatoi. Aelian’s
elephants, by contrast, praised for their extreme modesty and for only
copulating once in their lives and for reproductive purposes, reflect a con-
temporary philosophical disapproval of non-procreative sex (see the first
section of this chapter). This philosophical disapproval had its origins
in Pythagorean thought, but it was appropriated in Rome by the likes of
Seneca and Musonius, and in the century before Aelian was composing
the NA, procreationism was being defined as a central tenet of Chris-
tian sexual ethics. It is therefore not surprising that erôs is idealized in
Aelian’s text when it is reciprocal and when it seems more like philia: a
love of warm feelings, a spiritual love. In these human–animal romances,
it might even seem as if there is no sex going on at all. But Aelian’s text
also demonstrates that there are layers of subterfuge, and I have shown in
all of my readings that Aelian’s narratives are self-consciously aware of the
conventionality of such sanitized erotic conceptualizations. That this dual
mentality exists in the NA is perhaps not surprising when one considers
that Aelian was writing in the decades when Philostratus celebrated the

 NA ., ., ., .–, ., ., .–, ., ., ., ., ..  NA ..
 Gaca : –.  Thus Korhonen : –.
 The sexual animal
transcendent philosophical askêsis of Apollonios of Tyana, and Cassius Dio
simultaneously enraged and aroused his readers by graphically exagger-
ating and/or fabricating the transgressive sexual exploits of the emperor
Elagabalus. James Davidson’s exploration of the paradoxical relationship
between pleasure and pedantry throughout Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistai is
apt. Beginning from the premise that the subject of the Deipnosophistai
“is pleasure and yet it is far from pleasurable to read,” Davidson con-
cludes that Athenaeus’ “banquet becomes a banquet of Tantalus, thanks
to a simple rule: you cannot talk properly with your mouth full. The feast
of words is a feast of not eating, an anti-feast. That frustration we often
encounter in reading this scholarly text on pleasure is a frustration shared by
Athenaeus’ guests.” In other words, Athenaeus’ elaboration of his lengthy
sympotic compendium is generated by the tension between the desire to
satisfy physical pleasures (sexual, gastronomic, aesthetic, etc.) and the eter-
nal deferral of such pleasures. Contemporary erotic narratives also engage
in this literary seduction: most famously, perhaps, the scene of Daphnis’
initiation into the mysteries of erôs by the predatory “little wolf” Lukainion
in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe (.) titillates by playing on the superior
erotic knowingness of the reader, who, as Goldhill puts it, “is tempted to
pierce the veil of euphemism.” This juxtaposition and blending of sexual
abstinence and prurience characterizes also Aelian’s text and could even be
said to be a defining feature of literature from the Severan period.
It remains to consider in what sense Aelian imagines himself to be
a lover. I have in mind here not the biographical sketch of Aelian in
Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists, which offers the image of a man of
questionable virility who avoided making children by never marrying –
though these details are most tantalizing (see Chapter ). Rather, Aelian’s
own erotic self-representation within the pages of the NA is revealing. At
one point Aelian refers to himself as a “red-hot lover of truth” (ἀληθείας
ἐραστὴν διάπυρον, NA ., p. , line ), and in the crucial epilogue
of his animal miscellany, he declares that, “passion for learning inflames
me” (ἔρως με σοφίας . . . ἐξέκαυσεν, ep., p. , lines –). Aelian therefore
represents himself not as a philosopher, but as something more intense,
more passionate, but also a little bit shifty, and not without a sense of humor.
Though he draws heavily on the language of philosophical (especially
Stoic) discourse throughout the NA, nowhere in the text does Aelian refer
to himself explicitly as a “philosopher” (φιλόσοφος) or as “engaged in
 Davidson : .  Ibid. .
 On Athenaeus as an ur-pornographer, see Henry .
 Goldhill : .  Philostr. VS .
 Conclusion 
philosophy” (φιλοσοφῶν). And elsewhere in the epilogue, it becomes clear
that what Aelian means by “truth” is not an objective reality per se, but
a literary conceit: he is showing off the Protean truths that he has found
in books (see Chapter ). This is far from claiming a commitment to
philosophical ideals, and at one point in the NA Aelian even declares that
he has no time for philosophizing (οὔ μοι σχολὴ φιλοσοφεῖν νῦν, ., p. ,
line ). We are reminded, furthermore, by figures like Achilles Tatius,
Lucian, and Alciphron that it was a commonplace for sophistic writers
of the second and third centuries to ironize high-minded philosophizing,
especially in the area of sexual morality. Though Aelian appropriates the
language and imagery of philosophical discourse, and though he proclaims
his commitment to philosophy, he is also equally interested in the play of
writing, as when he defends his decision “to inject some pleasure into the
narrative” (ἐφηδῦναι τὸν λόγον, ., p. , line ) with his stories about
the boy Nerites. When therefore the sophist styles himself as a “red-hot
lover of truth” and claims to be inflamed by an ἔρως σοφίας, we may be
justified in reading an invitation to an equally sophisticated and playful
hermeneutics of erôs, even if that means we must, to use Aelian’s own
phrase, “make an interpretation based on lack of evidence” (εἰ δέ τι χρὴ
συμβαλεῖν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀτεκμάρτων, lines –). But evidence for the richness
of nature’s erotic permutations is everywhere at hand in Aelian’s narratives.
Even at their most modest, Aelian’s stories cannot entirely conceal the
earthy, animal sexuality that abides just beneath the surface.

Conclusion
The expressions of conservative morality regarding sexual behavior and
gender identity, authorized by Stoic and Pythagorean doctrine, must not
be understood as the final word on sex and gender in the NA. In fact,
Aelian’s animal miscellany just as often suspends the abjective response to
non-normative sexual behaviors and gender presentations, invoking instead
a solemnizing response that allows for a positive moral exploration of such
“perversions.”
The chapter on the sexual life of elephants, for example, appears to
reinforce the Pythagorean ideal of abstention from sex except for purposes
 See also NA ..
 Cf. Ach. Tat. .., .; Luc. DMeretr. ; Ath. .a; Alciphr. . Schepers. See Goldhill :
–.
 We might profitably think of Aelian as a Derridean reader of Plato: “Derrida sees Plato, in his
emphasis on truth, presence, and speaking as aware of yet caught in the same contradiction as all
thinkers who follow him” (DuBois : ).
 The sexual animal
of procreation. The implication is that, if Pythagoreanism is in line with the
natural law governing elephant behavior, then Pythagorean sexual morality
must itself be a natural law. But the NA shows in numerous passages that
nature is also responsible for the licentious, decidedly non-procreative sexual
practices of many other species. The argument from nature, therefore, such
as that suggested by the story of Pythagorean elephants and as it appears
within the broader context of the poikilia of the NA, is not irrefutable and
reflecting an immutable, transcendent law, but just one more ideologically
motivated strategy of persuasion.
Similarly, the abjective response to male effeminacy, both in the NA and
elsewhere in Aelian’s literary corpus, is offset by the solemnizing response
towards those creatures in the natural world that either are born with
dual sexuality or behave in ways that are disruptive to normative notions
of sex and gender. This interpretative approach is validated not just by
Aelian’s countercultural authorial persona but also by the poikilia and the
paradoxographical interests of his work.
Aelian’s numerous stories of interspecies eroticism further erode con-
ventional sexual morality. Aelian seems, on the one hand, to uphold the
classical Platonic paradigm of a chaste, heavenly erôs and also to reinforce
the Stoic categorization whereby humans are elevated above irrational beasts
through their participation in such an erôs. The sophistic nature of the text,
on the other hand, reveals that such a physically chaste, Platonic erôs is a
facade, as Aelian’s allusive prose offers the reader alternative possibilities.
In the NA, the “monstrous” truths of sex that lurk beneath the surface of
even the seemingly purest erôs refuse to be silenced.
The human–animal romances of the NA are a key to understanding
Aelian’s elaborate myth of the boy Nerites, transformed by a jealous Helios
into the most beautiful of dappled shellfish because of his reciprocal sexual
desire for the god Poseidon. The story is an eloquent reminder that “mon-
strous” sexual desire is not restricted to the outrageous stories of sexual
bestiality found in the NA, but applies also to the desire for the bearded
adult male, long censured within Greco-Roman culture. But according to
Aelian’s rebellious myth, which solemnizes the objectionable, it is out of
such “perverse” desire that the exceedingly holy god Anteros is born.
 c ha p te r 9

Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship

The literary tradition of offering advice to kings, which flourished during

the Hellenistic period in the Greek East and was revived in the Roman
Imperial context at the end of the first century ce by Dio of Prusa, under-
went a transition in Rome in the early third century. Dio of Prusa composed
two of his four orations On Kingship (Peri basileias, D.Chr.  and ) as dra-
matically delivered in the presence of the emperor Trajan himself, and
the two others ( and ), offering the imagined advice given by Philip
of Macedon and the philosopher Diogenes to Alexander the Great, seem
to suggest presentation before Trajan. Though the Imperial setting for the
orations is probably a fiction, Dio’s orations On Kingship were nevertheless
an innovation to a tradition in which, in previous centuries, the epistolary
form was the preferred means of communicating admonitions and advice
to kings. Dio, who had already suffered in exile because of the tyranny of
Domitian, now represented his very body as placed before the new princeps
as he offered his philosophical counsel.
Dio’s powerful literary gesture, reasserting the relevance of the intel-
lectual and man of letters before the emperor, continued to be popular
into the Severan age. Another Dio – the Bithynian senator Cassius Dio –
incorporated a similar scene into his grand history when he set the famous
speech of Maecenas before Octavian in Book . In that speech, Maecenas
counters Agrippa’s advice that Octavian should relinquish his authority
to the senate (D.C. .–); Maecenas, by contrast, supports Octavian’s
monarchical control of the empire, but counsels him with commonplaces
from the tradition of kingship literature (.–) as well as more spe-
cific measures that were relevant in the early third century, whether Dio

 Whitmarsh : –; Sidebottom , however, maintains the historicity of the Imperial
performance.
 Sidebottom : –.


 Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship
composed the speech during the reign of Caracalla or Alexander Severus
(.–).
A similar scene plays out in Philostratus’ Life of Apollonios of Tyana,
where three philosophers, Euphrates, Dio of Prusa, and Apollonios, are
each invited by Vespasian to offer their own advice about how he should
best rule after Rome’s sequence of wicked tyrannies (VA .–). Euphrates
proposes a return to democracy (..), while Dio of Prusa proposes that
Vespasian set the question before the Roman people to let them decide for
themselves how they wish to be governed, whether by the rule of the people
or by a king (..). Apollonios, however, advises Vespasian to sustain the
monarchy, which in its ideal execution is really no different than democracy
at its best. Apollonios bolsters his argument with an analogy from the
world of nature: “I do not think it right that the herd of human beings
be destroyed for their lack of a just and prudent herdsman” (..). After
offering such justifications for kingship, Apollonios then offers a sequence
of more practical advice (.), just as Maecenas had done for Octavian
in Cassius Dio’s Roman History. Philostratus therefore cleverly reinvents
Apollonios as the figure whose advice on kingship before Vespasian would
later inspire Dio of Prusa’s own orations On Kingship before the emperor
Trajan. As Harry Sidebottom puts it, “Philostratus has stolen from Dio to
create his picture of Apollonius, while ironically suggesting that Dio stole
from Apollonius.”
As in the Dionic orations, the perpetuation of “on kingship” literature
by Cassius Dio and by Philostratus is by no means straightforward. Each
author offers an oblique stylization of the tradition, reasserting the validity
of the gesture of speaking out before the emperor, while at the same time
declining to re-enact that gesture in propria persona. Fergus Millar dates
Cassius Dio’s composition of Maecenas’ speech to Octavian to the end
of  ce, when the historian was with Caracalla in Nicomedia, and he
even imagines the possibility that Dio read the speech before the emperor,
“a sign of considerable courage in view of its contents.” But this is, of
course, pure speculation on Millar’s part, imposing onto a Severan con-
text a putatively historical scene in which Dio of Prusa addressed Trajan
directly.

 Millar : – and Manuwald :  n.  posit composition under Caracalla. For composi-
tion under Alexander Severus, see Bowersock :  n. . Hammond  sees the speech not as
a political pamphlet but as a description of the principate as he knew it. On Maecenas’ remarks on
the imperial cult, see Fishwick .
 Sidebottom : .  Millar : .
 Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship 
There is an instructive difference between Dio’s orations On Kingship and
the literary refashionings by Cassius Dio and Philostratus. The advice on
kingship offered by Dio of Prusa, though incorporating historical fictions
(via the dialogues between Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great
and between Diogenes and Alexander), offered itself within orations that
purported or seemed to be delivered before the emperor. Dio’s orations,
in other words, even if they are literary fictions, take the form of speech
acts. Cassius Dio and Philostratus, however, safely distance themselves
from the scene of the intellectual’s philosophical admonishment of the
emperor by embedding it within historiographical and biographical frames.
The imagined scene of Dio addressing Trajan was clearly not so potent
as to motivate Cassius Dio and Philostratus to deliver orations before
Caracalla himself in their own voices. The literary stylizations of Cassius
Dio and Philostratus suggest an anxiety that the Dionic gesture would have
been impossible; to speak-act like the orator in Dio’s orations before an
emperor such as Caracalla would have meant certain death. Indirectness
was, therefore, required.
Aelian is equally interested in kingship, but his literary stylization of the
traditional themes of the discourse is more radically indirect than those of
Cassius Dio and Philostratus, illustrating the futility of the intellectual’s
attempts at meaningful communication with the sovereign. Consistent
with his rhetorical turn away from public life, rejecting a career declaiming
at the imperial court, Aelian jettisons entirely the declamatory scenario in
his treatment of kingship. Instead, Aelian shows us the bits and pieces of
a long tradition, the many facets of a discourse that could be combined
and shifted either to idealize the noble king or to vilify him as a monster,
depending on the context and motivations of the orator. In what follows,
I focus on Aelian’s depictions of three animals associated with kingship in
the NA – the bee, the lion, and the eagle – to show how for Aelian there
was an ever-widening gulf between the ideal of the philosopher king and
the more familiar realities of violent tyranny. Unmoored from any single,
overarching historical narrative, Aelian’s fragments on the kings of beasts
suggest that the nature of kingship is ultimately as unstable and mutable
as its symbolic vocabulary. In which case, no matter how eloquent and
persuasive the philosopher who may wish to guide the king, the act of
kingship itself must be left to the king, and about that situation, Aelian is
rightly pessimistic.

 Cf. Schöner : –.

 Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship

The hive and social organization

Aelian seems to have culled most of his information on bees from the His-
toria animalium of Aristotle, whether from the pages of Aristotle himself,
from the epitome of Aristophanes of Byzantium, or some other intermedi-
ary author. But whereas Aristotle offers an objective, scientific description
of the bee and its life, Aelian uses that Aristotelian description as the basis
for a moralizing interpretation. For Aelian, the bee and its hive life repre-
sent an ideal in social organization, and they are as worthy of the Greek
ethnographist’s attention as, for example, the Persians, a comparison that
elevates bee society and suggests for them the possession of an alien wisdom.
But bees surpass the Persians even, for while Aelian exalts the palaces of
Cyrus the Great and of Dareios and the paradeison of Cyrus the Younger,
the dwellings of bees command greater wonder because their construc-
tion was not based on the violence of tyranny. Persian kings, says Aelian,
“accomplished what they accomplished by imposing much suffering on
many, but there is nothing more beneficent than bees, since neither is
there anything more wise” (ἐκεῖνοι μὲν γὰρ πολὺ καὶ πολλοὺς λυπήσαντες
εἰργάσαντο ὅσα εἰργάσαντο· οὐδὲν δὲ ἄρα ἦν μελιττῶν εὐχαριτώτερον,
ἐπεὶ μηδὲ σοφώτερον ἦν, NA .). In typical fashion, Aelian idealizes
nature’s expression of a society based on monarchy, but the parallel expres-
sion among human beings is found to be deficient.
The natural sophia of bees is expressed especially in the intelligent design
of their dwellings:
πρώτους μὲν γὰρ ἐργάζονται τοὺς θαλάμους τοὺς τῶν βασιλέων, καὶ
εὐρυχωρίαν ἔχουσιν οὗτοι, καὶ εἰσὶν ἀνώτεροι· καὶ ἕρκος δὲ περιβάλλουσι
τούτοις, οἱονεὶ τεῖχος εἶναι καὶ περίβολον, ἀποσεμνύνουσαι καὶ ἐκ τούτων
τὴν οἴκησιν τὴν βασίλειον. διαιροῦσι δὲ ἑαυτὰς εἰς τρία καὶ οὖν καὶ τὰς
οἰκήσεις τὰς ἑαυτῶν εἰς τοσαῦτα. αἱ μὲν γὰρ πρεσβύταται καὶ αἱ παλαιό
ταται γειτνιῶσι τῇ τῶν βασιλέων αὐλῇ, οἱονεὶ δορυφόροι καὶ φρουροὶ
οὖσαι, αἱ δὲ νεώταται καὶ αἱ αὐτοετεῖς μετὰ ταύτας οἰκοῦσιν, αἱ δὲ ἐν ἥβῃ
καὶ ἀκμῇ οὖσαι ἐξωτέρω ἐκείνων, ὡς εἶναι τὰς μὲν πρεσβυτάτας φρουροὺς
τῶν βασιλέων, τὰς δὲ νεάνιδας ἕρκος τῶν νεωτάτων. (NA .)
For first they make the chambers of the kings, and these have plenty of room
and are higher up. And they even surround these with a defense, as if it is
a wall and palisade, thereby lending solemnity to the royal dwelling. And
they divide themselves into three and thus also their dwellings into just as
many. For the most senior and the oldest neighbor the palace of the kings,

 Arist. HA .– (b–a), .– (b–b). On the image of the bee in sophistic
paideia, see Morgan : –.
 The hive and social organization 
as if being bodyguards and protectors, and the youngest and their age-mates
dwell after these, but those in the prime of youth in the exterior beyond
them, the result being that, while the most senior are the protectors of the
kings, the youthful ones are a defense for the youngest.
The detail that the eldest of the bees serve as the kings’ bodyguards is a
refrain from an earlier, shorter entry (.). In a later chapter, we learn that
the task of the eldest bees is not just to protect the king, but also to guard
the hive, and the hive is divided into three classes according to age and duty:
some distribute water, some mold the wax of the hive, and others forage
(., p. , lines –). The hive therefore represents an ideally ordered
society, with each class of citizen performing its allotted duty.
Aelian’s chapters on the social life of bees invite comparison with Plato’s
Republic, the central text of ancient Greek political theory. Though the
idealized hive of the NA is indebted to the ideal state theorized by Plato’s
Socrates, Aelian reinvests the bee with noble qualities, since for Socrates the
bee was primarily a symbol of sweetness and pleasure, enticements to moral
corruption for the individual and, consequently, for the state. Instead of
focusing on the positive aspects of bees, i.e. the social organization of the
hive, the industry of the worker bees, or the idealization of the bee king,
Plato’s Socrates focused on the lazy, gluttonous drone to show how the
sweetness of honey – and, by extension, of poetry – could corrupt the soul
and city. According to Rana Saadi Liebert, “The reconfiguration of sweet-
ness in all forms as a toxin inimical to a healthy state and incommensurate
with the philosophic values of purity and moderation allows Socrates to
turn the poetic tradition [about bees and apian imagery] against itself.”
Socrates’ ideal state, in other words, must be free of the corrupting influ-
ence of honey, a gustatory pleasure that stands in for other, more insidious
pleasures that are antithetical to the philosophical life. The guardians of
Socrates’ ideal state must also protect against the bee-poet, the agent who
may introduce suspicious pleasures and thereby corrupt the citizenry.
Aelian preserves the Platonic anxiety about the drone’s addiction to
sweetness, but he also shows how the bees of a properly managed hive
deal with that potentially destabilizing element of apian society. When
a drone is discovered by vigilant bees to be secretly abusing the honey
that has been industriously stored up during the daytime, the bees do not
stand for it and thrust the seditious drone from the hive as an exile. “But
not even so has [the drone] received his lesson,” says Aelian, “for he is
by nature lazy and gluttonous, two evils” (ὃ δὲ οὐδ’ οὕτω πεπαίδευται·
 Saadi Liebert : .
 Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship
πέφυκε γὰρ καὶ ἀργὸς καὶ λίχνος, δύο κακώ, NA .). When the bees exit
the hive the next day to forage, the drone returns to do what he does best,
“filling himself up and plundering the bees’ sweet treasure” (ἐμφορούμενος
καὶ κεραΐζων ἐκεῖνος τὸν θησαυρὸν τῶν μελιττῶν τὸν γλυκύν). Caught
this second time, the drone is not merely beaten and exiled, for the bees
now know that the drone is an enemy to the hive and that correction and
instruction are impossible: “Attacking most violently, they smite the robber
with their stings. And submitting to a punishment not contemptible, he
pays for his greedy stomach and his shameless devouring with his life”
(εὖ μάλα τοῖς κέντροις βιαίως ἐμπεσοῦσαι διαλοῶσι τὸν λῃστήν· καὶ οὐ
μεμπτὴν ὑπομείνας τὴν τιμωρίαν, ὑπὲρ τῆς γαστριμαργίας καὶ ἀδηφαγίας
τὴν ψυχὴν ἔτισεν). Apian society, too, contains within it Plato’s appetitive
element, but the thumotic element within the hive, represented by the
guardian bees, is strong enough to maintain the proper balance and to keep
the appetitive element in check.
Having dealt with the lazy, gluttonous drone, Aelian spends far more
time elsewhere in the NA extolling the bee’s many virtues. “The bee,”
he says, “lives a pure life and it would never eat of any living creature.
And it has no need at all of Pythagoras as an advisor, but flowers are
a sufficient food for it” (βίον δὲ καθαρὸν ζῇ μέλιττα, καὶ ζῴου οὐκ ἂν
οὐδενὸς πάσαιτό ποτε· καὶ οὐ δεῖται Πυθαγόρου συμβούλου οὐδὲ ἕν,
ἀπόχρη δὲ ἄρα σῖτον αὐτῇ εἶναι τὰ ἄνθη, NA ., p. , lines –).
In his thoroughly idealizing depiction of bees, Aelian, like Philostratus
in his Life of Apollonios of Tyana, establishes a Pythagorean lifestyle as
the positive contrast to the tyrannical excesses that he depicts elsewhere
as potential qualities of lions and eagles. Also like Pythagoras, the bee
is the embodiment of moderation and chastity (sôphrosunê), and it hates
luxury (khlidê) and weakness (thrupsis), as evidenced by the fact that it
pursues anyone anointed with myrrh and drives him away as an enemy.
Furthermore, it knows when one has come away from a sexual encounter
with another person, pursuing this one too as an enemy. In combat, they
display manly courage (andreia) and do not turn away in fear. They are
friendly towards those who bear no evil intent, but there is, as the saying
goes, a “war without truce” (polemos akêruktos) against those who do them
harm (NA ., p. , line –p. , line ; on their hatred of perfume,
see also ., where Aelian compares bees to girls that are asteiai te kai
sôphrones). Once again minimizing the significance of the drone, Aelian

 On the possible role of drones as guardians in the hive, see Borthwick : –, on NA ..
 Pl. R. d–b.
 The hive and social organization 
highlights the bee’s love of work and its hatred of laziness (.), and while
he admits that some bees are erotic and given to physical pleasure, most
bees are continent (.).
Over such a philosophically inclined, regimented species presides the
king of bees. Especially important for Aelian is the widespread belief,
mentioned by Aristotle, that the king of bees has no sting; Aristotle sets
the record straight: the king does possess a sting, but he never uses it.
Aristotle’s entomological insight gives Aelian an opportunity to close the
first book of the NA by meditating on the properly continent behavior of
kings:
Λέγει μέν τις λόγος ἀκέντρους εἶναι τοὺς τούτων βασιλέας· λέγει δὲ καὶ
ἕτερος καὶ πάνυ ἐρρωμένα τὰ κέντρα συμπεφυκέναι αὐτοῖς καὶ τεθηγμένα
ἀνδρειότατα· οὔτε δὲ ἐπ’ ἀνδρί ποτε χρῆσθαι αὐτοῖς οὔτε ἐπὶ ταῖς μελίτ
ταις, ἀλλὰ ὑποπεπλάσθαι φόβον ἄλλως· μὴ γὰρ θέμις εἶναι τὸν ἄρχοντα
καὶ τῶν τοσούτων ἔφορον κακὸν ἐργάσασθαι. καὶ τὰς μελίττας δὲ τὰς
λοιπὰς ὁμολογοῦσιν οἱ τούτων ἐπιστήμονες ἐν ὄψει τῶν ἀρχόντων τῶν
σφετέρων ὑποκλίνειν τὰ κέντρα, οἱονεὶ τῆς ἐξουσίας ἀφισταμένας καὶ
παραχωρούσας. ἑκάτερον δ’ ἄν τις ἐκπλαγείη τὸ τῶν βασιλέων ἐκείνων·
εἴτε γὰρ μὴ ἔχουσι πόθεν ἀδικήσουσι, μέγα τοῦτο· εἴτε καὶ παρὸν ἀδικῆσαι
μὴ ἀδικοῦσιν, ἀλλὰ τοῦτό γε μακρῷ κρεῖττόν ἐστιν. (NA .)
One story says that the kings of these creatures have no sting; but a different
story says that they are born with stings that are very strong and sharpened
in a most virile fashion, but that they never use them against a man or
against the bees, but pretend to instill fear otherwise, for it is not right that
one ruling and overseeing so many should commit a wicked act. And those
who know about these creatures agree that the other bees also withdraw
their stings in the presence of their rulers, as if deferring and giving way
to their authority. Either quality of those kings of the bees would inspire
wonder: it is amazing if they lack the means to commit an injustice, but it
is far more powerful if, even when it is possible for them to be unjust, they
are not unjust.
Dio of Prusa even employs this commonplace about the king of bees in
his fourth oration On Kingship, in which the Cynic philosopher Diogenes
upbraids Alexander the Great for his unkingly penchant for bearing arms
at all times. Alexander should be like the king of bees, who is born without
a sting, which is the natural sign (sêmeion) of his right to rule. More
meaningful for Aelian, however, is the enkrateia, or self-mastery, required
of the king who suppress violent urges even when he has his sword at his
side.
 Arist. HA . (b–).  D.Chr. .–.
 Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship
Aelian takes his praise of the peaceful king further: the philosophical
regent who refrains from using the violent means that are granted to him
by his station engenders the devotion and loyalty of his subjects. Whenever
such a king leaves the hive, the other bees rally to seek him out and “bring
him back to his palace” (εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν ἐπανάγουσιν, NA .). Aelian
here draws a sharp contrast between the bees’ desire to retain their good king
and the human cities that drove out rulers such as Peisistratos, Dionysius
of Syracuse, and others “who were lawless tyrants and unable to display
the craft of kingship, which is the love of humanity and the stewardship of
one’s subjects” (τυράννους τε καὶ παρανόμους ὄντας καὶ τέχνην βασιλικὴν
ἀποδείξασθαι μὴ δυναμένους, ἥπερ οὖν φιλανθρωπία τε καὶ τῶν ὑπηκόων
ἐστὶ προστασία). In return for displaying this beneficent craft of kingship
(tekhnê basilikê), the king reinforces a bond of mutual affection between
himself and his subjects. Aelian notes in this same passage that the king
of bees, when grown old and infirm, is even carried about on a litter by
the other bees that adore him. The reciprocal devotion between bees and
their kings was a traditional motif that predated Aristotle, as evidenced by
the analogy that Xenophon articulates about Cyrus the Great: “For you
yourself seem to me to have been born a king by nature no less than the
leader of the bees born in the hive. For the bees of their own will obey
him, and wherever he might rest, no bee departs from that place. But if he
might depart to some other place, no bee is left behind in the former place,
so awesome a passion (δεινός τις ἔρως) is engendered in them for being
ruled by him” (X. Cyr. ..). This passage from Xenophon is evidence
of the positive tradition about bees against which Plato was reacting when
his Socrates imagined the danger that drone-citizens, beguiled by pleasure,
posed to his ideal city in the Republic. Resuscitating this positive tradition
is also the way in which Aelian restores to apian society a central position
in depicting an ideal of social organization and the illustration of the
philosopher king.
Aelian even employs a Platonic allusion in his philosophical restoration
of the bee, thereby modifying Plato with Plato’s own poetic imagery:
ὅπερ δὲ ὁ θεῖος Πλάτων περὶ τῶν τεττίγων λέγει καὶ τῆς ἐκείνων φιλῳδίας
τε καὶ φιλομουσίας, τοῦτ’ ἂν καὶ περὶ τοῦ τῶν μελιττῶν χοροῦ εἴποι τις.
ὅταν γοῦν σκιρτήσωσιν ἢ πλανηθῶσιν, ἐνταῦθα οἱ σμηνουργοὶ κροτοῦσι
κρότον τινὰ ἐμμελῆ τε καὶ συμμελῆ· αἳ δὲ ὡς ὑπὸ Σειρῆνος ἕλκονται, καὶ
μέντοι καὶ ὑποστρέφουσιν ἐς ἤθη τὰ οἰκεῖα αὖθις. (NA .)
And that which the divine Plato says about cicadas and their love of singing
and being dear to the muses, someone would say this also about the dancing
of the bees. At any rate, whenever they leap and wander about, at this point
 The hive and social organization 
the hive masters strike a harmonious and rhythmic beat, and the bees are
drawn as if by a Siren and indeed they turn back toward their proper haunts.
Aelian portrays bees positively not just for their ideal social organization
and for the beneficence of their kings, but also because they are creatures
dear to the Muses, as evidenced by this anecdote about their responsiveness
to the musical rhythm of their hive masters. If Socrates’ primary criticism
of the bee in the Republic is its association with sweetness and variety,
Aelian neutralizes that criticism by likening bees to cicadas, the insects that
Socrates famously mythologizes in an inspired passage from the Phaedrus.
For Socrates, the cicadas were once upon a time human beings who so fell
in love with singing that they thought of nothing else, neglecting food and
drink until they wasted away. For their devotion, the Muses granted the
cicadas a life that needed no food or drink and allowed them to sing from
the moment they are born until they die. After death, at the side of the
Muses, the cicadas report to their goddesses about those among men who
honor them most.
There is an aesthetic commentary here that is relevant not only to the
concept of the ideal society, but also to Aelian’s own literary composition.
Just as the leaping and wandering of the bees must be tamed by the hive
masters’ musical rhythm, so the seemingly haphazard wandering of Aelian’s
book is tempered by his craft, as Aelian has stylized his narratives in the
common literary language and has taken pains with his composition and
with the beauty of its words and phrases. He has given free rein to his
imagination as it ranges at random over the curiosities of animal lore, but
he is also a productive, disciplined literary artist. The bee, therefore, figures
in this sense as a symbol for Aelian’s own creative activity, leaping and
wandering about from topic to topic, but also obedient to the demands of
his craft and devoted to the muses. The bee’s association with poetry and
literature was, of course, well known: in the Greek tradition, it extended
back through Callimachus to the earlier lyric poets and even to Hesiod,
and Aristophanes offers an archetypal image of the poet Phrunikhos as a
bee gathering the fruit of ambrosial songs; within Roman culture, Aelian
would have been familiar with Vergil’s lavish treatment of the theme at
the end of the Georgics. It is worth remembering also that, according
to the evidence of the Souda, Aelian “was nicknamed honey-tongued or
honey-voiced” (ἐπεκλήθη μελίγλωσσος ἢ μελίφθογγος, Souda αι- ).

 On the Platonic anxiety over poikilia, see Saadi Liebert : –.
 Pl. Phdr. e–d.  NA preface, p. , lines –; epilogue, p. , lines –.
 Ar. Av. –; Verg. G. .–.
 Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship
Furthermore, the association between the hive and the organizational poik-
ilia of the literary miscellany had already been established by the second
century ce: in his preface to the Noctes Atticae, Aulus Gellius mentions
Kêria, or “Honeycomb,” as the title that another writer used for a differ-
ent such collection containing “learning that was varied, mixed, and, as
it were, disordered” (variam et miscellam et quasi confusaneam doctrinam,
Gel. pref. –). Aelian’s literary poikilia may be an instrument of pleasure
and therefore susceptible to philosophical criticisms, but in his chapters on
the bee Aelian himself offers a Platonic rationale for his project. The writer
of animal narratives studies the mysteries of nature and by means of his
honeyed prose communicates a vision of the natural world as a corrective
to the ills of human life. The bee specifically, which symbolically validates
the philosophical significance of Aelian’s literary composition, is also the
creature that offers the image of the perfect king and the perfect society.

Lions
The lion’s association with kingship extends back to Homer, whose author-
ity in Aelian’s chapters on the lion is prominent. An equally important
source on lions is the lore of the Egyptians, whose ancient authority val-
idates the animal’s religious significance. While discussing the lion’s mas-
tery over sleep, illustrated by the fact that when it appears to be sleeping it
moves its tail as an outward sign of its eternal vigilance, Aelian says that it is
for this reason that the Egyptians have assigned the animal to the sun, “for
the sun is the most industrious of gods, in that he is either seen above
the earth or making his journey downward never resting” (καὶ γάρ τοι καὶ
τὸν ἥλιον θεῶν ὄντα φιλοπονώτατον ἢ ἄνω τῆς γῆς ὁρᾶσθαι ἢ τὴν κάτω
πορείαν ἰέναι μὴ ἡσυχάζοντα, NA ., p. , lines –). In the following
sentence, the Egyptian and Homeric sources corroborate each other: “the
Egyptians bring in Homer as a witness, who says that the sun is unceasing”
(lines –; cf. Il. .). The lion’s association with the sun is picked up
in a later chapter, where Aelian says that the animal is red hot (διάπυρον – a
quality that Aelian applies to himself as a lover of truth, cf. NA ., p. , line
). The lion is averse to and flees the external fire because of his abundance
of fire within, which is the reason why the Egyptians say he is the dwelling
place of Helios, for whenever the sun is at its hottest at the height of sum-
mer, they say that it is drawing near to the heavenly Lion (NA ., p. ,
line ).
 NA ., ., ., .. On Homer in the NA, see Kindstrand .
 Lions 
The proper worship of Helios seems to have been a source of debate
during the Severan period, with one tradition favoring elaborate animal
sacrifices and another tradition, influenced by Pythagorean doctrine, favor-
ing prayer and the pure offering of incense without animal sacrifice, with
the latter, of course, considered more pious by the learned philosophers
of Aelian’s day. And yet, despite the lion’s association with the heavenly
fire of the sun, Aelian nevertheless does not depict the animal as itself
transcending a carnal appetite, but emphasizes instead the lion’s unvarying
diet of raw meat, even in the religious context of its worship among the
Egyptians. In Egypt, lions “have temples and plenty of spaces to spend
time, and beef is provided for them on a daily basis, stripped of bone
and tendon, and the Egyptians chant in accompaniment in their own lan-
guage while the lions are feeding” (ἔχουσι νεὼς καὶ διατριβὰς εὖ μάλα
ἀφθόνους, καὶ κρέα βοῶν αὐτοῖς ἐστιν ὁσημέραι, καὶ διασπαρακτὰ κεῖ-
ται γυμνὰ ὀστέων καὶ ἰνῶν, καὶ ἐσθιόντων ἐπᾴδουσιν Αἰγυπτίᾳ φωνῇ,
NA ., p. , lines –). The animals are even provided with exercise
grounds in their holy precinct, “and the opponent of the well-nourished
creatures is a calf. And when he has exercised against it, so that he might
take it down . . . he takes his fill and then returns to his own little dwelling”
(ὁ δὲ ἀντίπαλος τῶν εὐτραφῶν μόσχος. καὶ πρὸς τοῦτον γυμνασάμενος,
ἵνα αὐτὸν καθέλῃ . . . ἐμφορεῖταί τε καὶ ὑποστρέφει εἰς τὸ αὔλιον τὸ ἴδιον,
lines –). Aelian’s chapters on the lion, therefore, situate the animal
ambivalently between a heavenly transcendence and the carnal appetite of
its belly.
Unlike the king of bees, however, which, according to Aelian, abstains
from using violence to impose his will on his subjects, the lion, the king of
all beasts, gains its courage from its claws and teeth (NA .). The lion’s
violent behavior and the fear that he inspires, both commonplaces in the
literary tradition, Aelian connects to the lion’s inability to exert control over
its appetitive desires. The lion is most fierce when it is hungry, most mild,
even playful, when it has been sated (.). But by living according to the
demands of his stomach, the lion becomes greedy of his prey. After gorging
himself on his kill, he does not leave the carcass for other animals, but pours
his noxious breath over it, marking it as his own. Other animals are fearful
of the scent and stay away, not wanting “to appear to plunder and cut off
anything that belongs to their own king” (δοκεῖν συλᾶν καὶ περικόπτειν τι
τοῦ σφετέρου βασιλέως, ., p. , lines –). The fact that it indulges
in sexual behavior at all seasons of the year, never abstaining, is a further

 D.C. . (probably fiction); Hdn. ..–; Philostr. VA .., ., ., and ...
 Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship
symptom, from a Pythagorean point of view, of the lion’s unregimented
lifestyle (.).
But the lion is not just a symbol for tyrannical excess, for when it
is properly cultivated, the lion’s power may be beneficial. He is a brave
adversary, capable of goading himself into battle when necessary (NA .,
., .); even on those occasions when he realizes that he has been
defeated, “The lion would never turn its back in flight, but moves back
calmly looking you in the face for a time” (φύγοι δὲ οὐκ ἄν ποτε τὰ νῶτα
τρέψας λέων, ἡσυχῆ δὲ ἐπὶ πόδα ἀναχωρεῖ βλέπων ἀντίος καὶ ἐπιβραχύ,
.). This evidence that the animal knows when and when not to use force
is a sign that it can be trained and will submit to human authority:
ἡμερωθείς γε μὴν ἐξέτι νεαροῦ πραότατός ἐστι καὶ ἐντυχεῖν ἡδύς, καὶ ἔστι
φιλοπαίστης, καὶ πᾶν ὅ τι οὖν ὑπομένει πραόνως τῷ τροφεῖ χαριζόμενος.
῎Αννων γοῦν λέοντα εἶχε σκευαγωγόν, καὶ Βερενίκῃ λέων πρᾶος συνῆν,
τῶν κομμωτῶν διαφέρων οὐδέν. ἐφαίδρυνε γοῦν τῇ γλώττῃ ἡσυχῇ τὸ
πρόσωπον αὐτῆς, καὶ τὰς ῥυτίδας ἐλέαινε, καὶ ἦν ὁμοτράπεζος, πράως
τε καὶ εὐτάκτως ἐσθίων καὶ ἀνθρωπικῶς. καὶ ᾿Ονόμαρχος δὲ ὁ Κατάνης
τύραννος καὶ ὁ Κλεομένους υἱὸς συσσίτους εἶχον λέοντας. (NA ., p. ,
line –p. , line .)
Having been tamed while still young, he is the most gentle and sweet to
encounter, and he loves to play, and in everything that he endures temper-
ately, he is pleasing to his master. Hanno at any rate had a lion as a baggage
transport, and a tame lion was the companion of Berenike, in no way dif-
ferently than her beauticians. It used to brighten her face gently with its
tongue and smooth out her wrinkles, and it used to share her table, eating
in a tamed, well-ordered, and human manner. And Onomarkhos, the tyrant
of Katane, and the son of Kleomenes had lions as dining companions.
Aelian catalogues these figures from the past because of their penchant for
harnessing the animal power of lions as part of the visual repertoire of their
own kingly power. What better way to project the persona of a powerful
ruler than to dine at table with lions or to be seen being caressed and licked
by the king of beasts? But the attachment that these potentates felt toward
their pet lions could have strong negative connotations. The Hanno whom
Aelian mentions is probably the same man described by Pliny and Plutarch
as having been banished from Carthage for daring to tame a lion, a sign
that he was a dangerous threat to the freedom of his people. Aelian’s
“son of Kleomenes” probably refers to Akrotatos, the son of Kleomenes II,
king of Sparta, notorious for his indulgence in an extravagant, tyrannical
 I adopt κομμωτῶν, which is the reading of Pierson and Hercher; GLR print κομμώντων.
 Plin. Nat. ., Plu. Mor. e (Praecepta gerendae reipublicae); cf. Ael. VH. ..
 Lions 
lifestyle. One is reminded by these stories of how lions and lion imagery
figured in anecdotes about Alcibiades and the threat that his tyrannical
nature posed to Athenian democracy. Playing on the tradition of the dan-
gerous lion cub that Aeschylus famously described in the Agamemnon,
Aristophanes has the same poet say about Alcibiades, “It’s not good to rear
a lion cub in the city. If you do raise one to maturity, then cater to its
ways.”
Aelian’s conception of the lion as mediating between the just rule of
human authority and the violence of an untamed, monstrous nature con-
forms with the conversation at the end of Plato’s Republic, where Socrates
describes the human soul as containing within it three creatures: a hybrid,
many-headed beast, a lion, and a man. Socrates postulates that the just
person will allow the man in his soul to govern the other two elements:
ὅθεν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὁ ἐντὸς ἄνθρωπος ἔσται ἐγκρατέστατος, καὶ τοῦ
πολυκεφάλου θρέμματος ἐπιμελήσεται ὥσπερ γεωργός, τὰ μὲν ἥμερα
τρέφων καὶ τιθασεύων, τὰ δὲ ἄγρια ἀποκωλύων φύεσθαι, σύμμαχον ποιη
σάμενος τὴν τοῦ λέοντος φύσιν, καὶ κοινῇ πάντων κηδόμενος, φίλα ποιη
σάμενος ἀλλήλοις τε καὶ αὑτῷ . . . (Pl. R. a–b)
Whence the man inside will be most in control of the man, and he will take
care of the many-headed creature, like a farmer, nurturing and taming what
is mild, but preventing what is savage from growing, having made the lion’s
nature his ally, and being concerned about everything in common, having
made them friendly to each other and to himself.
In this formulation, the lion is analogous to the courageous or spirited part
of the soul (thumoeides), through which the rational element (logistikon)
is able to gain mastery over the appetitive part (epithumêtikon). But the
opposite situation, i.e. for the bestial elements to gain control over the
human element, would result in tyranny. The figure of the lion, therefore,
and how one relates to the lion are part of the symbolic vocabulary for
expressing the precariousness of justice and how the failure to exert the
proper control will give rise to injustice. Plato’s imagery accords with the
lore of the Egyptians, for whom lions are an agent of divine justice: “lions,
appearing as a dream to those to whom the god [Helios] is propitious,
foretell some things, but those who have perjured they punish straightaway
without delay, since the god breathes his just anger upon them” (καὶ γάρ
τοι καὶ ὄναρ οἷσπερ οὖν ὁ θεός ἐστιν ἵλεως ἐπιστάντες προθεσπίζουσί
τινα, καὶ τοὺς ἐπίορκον ὀμόσαντας οὐκ εἰς ἀναβολὰς ἀλλὰ ἤδη δικαιοῦσι,

 D.S. ..–.  A. A. –; Ar. Ra. –. For a summary, see Smith : –.
 Pl. R. d–b.
 Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship
τοῦ θεοῦ τὴν ὀργὴν τὴν δικαίαν αὐτοῖς καταπνέοντος, NA ., p. ,
lines –). Further, when Aelian relates the legendary behavior of the
people of Ambrakia, he may well have in mind Plato’s imagery of the lion in
the soul: “because a lioness tore apart their tyrant Phaülos, they revere the
creature that was the cause of their freedom” (ἐπεὶ τὸν τύραννον αὐτῶν
Φάϋλον διεσπάσατο λέαινα, τιμῶσι τὸ ζῷον αἴτιον αὐτοῖς ἐλευθερίας
γεγενημένον, NA .).
The relationship between human beings and lions and the role of the
lion as the king of beasts is the topic of the important chapter that opens
Book . The Maurousioi of Africa, says Aelian, walk the same paths with
lions and drink water from the same source, but when the lions become
hungry, this delicate symbiosis is threatened, for they leave behind their
natural haunts and in their quest for food they dare to enter the very houses
of the Maurousioi. The men forcefully remove them from the house, but
women are gentler, speaking to them instead of employing force:
‘σὺ δὲ οὐκ αἰδῇ λέων ὢν ὁ τῶν ζῴων βασιλεὺς ἐπὶ τὴν ἐμὴν καλύβην ἰών,
καὶ γυναικὸς δεόμενος ἵνα τραφῇς, καὶ δίκην ἀνθρώπου λελωβημένου τὸ
σῶμα εἰς χεῖρας γυναικείας ἀποβλέπεις, ἵνα οἴκτῳ καὶ ἐλέῳ τύχῃς ὧν δέῃ;
ὃν δέον εἰς ὀρείους ὁρμῆσαι διατριβὰς ἐπί τε ἐλάφους καὶ βουβαλίδας καὶ τὰ
λοιπὰ ὅσα λεόντων δεῖπνον ἔνδοξον. κυνιδίου δὲ ἀθλίου φύσει προσεοικὼς
ἀγαπᾷς παρατραφῆναι.’ (NA .)
“Aren’t you ashamed, being a lion, the king of the animals, to enter my hut
and ask a woman to feed you, and like a wounded man to look at a woman’s
hands, so that you might get what you need through pity and mercy? You
should set off to your mountain haunts to pursue hinds and antelopes and
the other things that are a proper feast for lions. But similar in nature to a
wretched little dog you want to be fed.”
Aelian interprets the lion’s ability to understand human language as the
result of the Maurousioi and lions being “brought up and reared together”
(συντρόφους καὶ ὁμοτρόφους): eating together and growing up together
foster community between human and animal. Thus able to speak to the
lion in terms that the lion will understand, the woman appeals directly
to his kingly nature and hence to his understanding of justice, the proper
order of things. Aelian states that the lion slinks away in shame, his eyes
cast downward, “defeated by what is just” (ἡττηθεὶς τῶν δικαίων). The
story reinforces the connection between kingship as the maintenance of
balance between human and animal natures and the expression of that
balance within the symbolic realm of the alimentary. On a simple reading,

 Cf. Derrida : .

 Lions 
the woman merely wants this dangerous animal out of her house. But
the episode says much about the perceived boundary between human life
and the life of the lion. The lion must, says the woman, live up to its proper
nature, hunting down prey in the mountains. It must be daring and feral.
To penetrate a human house and beg for food like a dog is to debase its own
character. The kingly nature, by contrast, demands the proper bearing; the
lion-king himself must be active, strong, and predatory.

Androkles and the lion

Aelian’s rewriting of the story of Androkles and the lion brings this discur-
sive background of the lion’s association with the spirited/thumic aspect
of kingship into direct contact with Roman imperial power. The famous
story of the friendship between a lion and a condemned Roman slave cul-
minates with a spectacular reversal of expectations in the Roman arena, in
a moment that is potentially disruptive to the whole of the Roman political
order. Variations of this story were popular and circulating in antiquity,
though this particular story was first told in Greek by the Alexandrian
writer Apion (fl. c.  ce) in his book the Aiguptiaka, a collection of
Egyptian curiosities. Apion’s Greek account no longer exists, but Aulus
Gellius translated the story into Latin for his miscellaneous collection, the
Noctes Atticae (.). A comparison of Aelian’s retelling with Gellius’ Latin
version reveals that in his retelling Aelian sought to streamline the narra-
tive and to leave unresolved the challenge posed to imperial power at the
conclusion of the story. In Aelian’s version of the story, the question of
power and kingly authority comes to the fore.
To begin, the narrative structures of both accounts are markedly dif-
ferent. Gellius’ chronologically alinear account, preserving Apion’s first-
person voice in direct discourse, begins with the spectacle of a lavish
“hunt” in the Roman arena; the peculiar behavior of the lion that will not
attack the condemned slave of a man of consular rank leads to the slave’s
explanation before the emperor that once upon a time he had removed a
thorn from the lion’s paw and become friends with the lion. At this point,
Gellius allows Androclus (Gellius’ Latinized version of the name) to speak
 See Plin. Nat. .– and the textually corrupt ending of Aelian NA .. Marx : – argues
that the accounts of both Gellius and Aelian attest to the widely popular folk tale of the Grateful
Beast. The story was the subject of visual art as well. Several small gems from the second and third
centuries ce depict Eros removing a thorn from the paw of a lion. Bonner : – concludes
that the images represent the overlapping of the folk tale with the motif of the “sports of love”
(cf. Luc. DDeor. .) and with religious imagery from Egypt. See more recently Hellmann :
–.
 Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship
for himself in an extended first-person account in direct discourse. At the
conclusion of Androclus’ speech, Gellius explains that the decision was
turned over to the people: Androclus was set free and the lion was given to
him by popular vote. Gellius concludes by reverting once more to Apion’s
first-person account that he himself had seen Androclus leading the lion
by a slender leash about the city’s taverns, both celebrated by the people,
the one for having played host to a man, the other for having healed a lion.
Aelian’s version, by contrast, is told entirely by an “omniscient” pri-
mary narrator (to whom I refer as “Aelian” for the sake of convenience)
and maintains a strict chronological linearity. This more straightforward
narrative strategy may at first seem like the mark of a less sophisticated
writer, but the narrative aims of each author should be considered. Gel-
lius’ version, focalized through the point of view of an astonished narrator
who saw the events in the arena at first hand, is meant to evoke a similar
sense of wonder in the reader. Delaying the explanation of the prior rela-
tionship between Androclus and the lion suspends the reader’s wonder for
as long as possible. Aelian’s stated intention, on the other hand, both at
the beginning and at the end of the narrative, is to illustrate that animals
too possess the faculty of memory (Μνήμην δὲ παρακολουθεῖν καὶ τοῖς
ζῴοις, NA ., p. , line ; ἴδιον δὴ τῶν ζῴων καὶ ἡ μνήμη, p. ,
lines –). Memory, of course, presupposes an ordering of events in time,
and the linear chronology of Aelian’s narrative is mimetic of the lion’s own
ability to understand the temporal sequence of its life.
Aelian’s choice to narrate the entire story himself also accounts for an
intriguing suppression of a narrative detail found in Gellius’ version. There,
when interrogated by the emperor in the arena, Androclus explains that,
after he had gone to Africa with the household of his master, the provincial
governor, “I myself was compelled to flee because of the unfair beatings
I received from him there every day” (ego ibi iniquis eius et cotidianis uer-
beribus ad fugam sum coactus, Gel. ..). To hear Androclus himself tell
it, life with the senator, a cruel despot, was unbearable. Aelian’s account, by
contrast, is startling: “A man named Androkles, a household slave thanks
to fortune, because he had committed some offense – what it was exactly
and how great it was, I cannot say – ran away from his master, a member of
the Roman senate” (τὸν δεσπότην ὄντα τῶν ἐκ τῆς ῾Ρωμαίων βουλῆς ἀπέ-
δρα ᾿Ανδροκλῆς ὄνομα, οἰκέτης τὴν τύχην, ὅ τι κακουργήσας καὶ ἡλίκον
οὐκ οἶδα εἰπεῖν, NA ., p. , lines –). In Aelian’s account, not
only is the slave not allowed to speak for himself, but the prerogative
of the Roman senator is unquestioned, as Aelian suppresses the possibil-
ity that the slave was a victim of the senator’s unjust cruelty. The stated
 Lions 
presupposition, in fact, is quite the opposite: the slave ran away because
he must have committed some offense against his master! But the discur-
sive preservation of the hierarchical status quo at the beginning of Aelian’s
narrative makes the climactic outburst of the dêmos, calling for the libera-
tion of the slave and the lion, all the more potentially revolutionary. Even
the grammar and syntax of Aelian’s artful sentence, quoted above, reflect
the narrative’s problematization of the political order: though Androkles is
the grammatical subject of the sentence, the Roman master is granted the
privileged first position in the sentence (impossible to convey in English
translation). The oblique case of τὸν δεσπότην, however, hints at the pos-
sible occlusion of the master’s power implied at the end of the narrative:
καὶ ὁ διδοὺς τὰς θέας καλεῖ τὸν ᾿Ανδροκλέα, καὶ τὸ πᾶν μανθάνει. καὶ θροῦς
εἰς τὸ πλῆθος διαρρεῖ, καὶ τὸ σαφὲς ὁ δῆμος μαθόντες ἐλευθέρους ἐκβοῶσιν
ἀφεῖσθαι καὶ τὸν ἄνδρα καὶ τὸν λέοντα. ἴδιον δὴ τῶν ζῴων καὶ ἡ μνήμη.
(NA ., p. , lines –)
And the one producing the shows summons Androkles and learns the whole
thing. And the report spreads, and the people, learning the clear truth, shout
out for them to be set free, both the man and the lion. Indeed memory too
is something particular to animals.

Comparison with Gellius’ translation of Apion is once again instructive.

Gellius provides a satisfying conclusion to the climactic events that tran-
spire in the arena: the emperor yields to the will of the people, releasing
Androclus and the lion, who were later regularly seen together in the streets
and taverns of the city and acclaimed by the Romans (Gel. ..–).
Aelian, however, concludes his narrative at the moment when the dêmos
is clamoring for the freedom of the pair. There is no resolution, as Aelian
transitions abruptly to a restatement of the theme with which he began
the narrative, i.e. that animals too have memory. The abruptness of this
transition highlights the suspense of that final moment with which Aelian
leaves his readers. The story, which began with the action of a slave that
Aelian depicted as a disobedient transgressor, ends with the dilemma of an
emperor who must decide between upholding the slave-owning rights of a
senator and bending to the will of a potentially unruly mob. Despite that
he was using Apion’s story as a model, Aelian may well have had in mind
the anecdote recounted by his contemporary Cassius Dio about the time
when the emperor Hadrian, in a similar situation, was confronted in the
hippodrome by an angry mob shouting for the freedom of a charioteer.
Hadrian’s response was to send around the hippodrome placards bearing
the statement, “It is not right for you either to ask me to free another
 Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship
man’s slave or to compel his master to do so” (οὐ προσήκει ὑμῖν οὔτε παρ’
ἐμοῦ αἰτεῖν ἵνα ἀλλότριον δοῦλον ἐλευθερώσω, οὔτε τὸν δεσπότην αὐτοῦ
βιάζεσθαι τοῦτο ποιῆσαι, D.C. ..). Unlike the emperor in Apion’s
story, Hadrian is able to keep the mob in check even though he denies
their request. Both this episode and the story of Androkles and the lion
resonated with the potentially influential political role that the dêmos could
assume at public spectacles during Aelian’s own lifetime.
But rather than satisfy a reader’s desire for a happy ending such as
that provided by Apion and Gellius, Aelian leaves the reader suspended
in that moment of an emperor’s crisis about how to defuse a potentially
explosive challenge. Aelian offers a vivid account of the recognition between
Androkles and the lion, and how the lion comes to the aid of his human
friend and former guest, protecting him from another attacking beast:
when the lion that was supposed to eat Androkles instead fawns over him
and treats him as a long-lost companion, Androkles is suspected of being a
sorcerer, and “a leopard too was released against him. But as it was rushing
at Androkles, the lion, defending the one who had once healed him and
remembering the table that they shared, tears the leopard apart” (ἐφείθη οἱ
καὶ πάρδαλις. ὁρμώσης δὲ αὐτῆς ἐπὶ τὸν ᾿Ανδροκλέα, ὁ λέων ἀμύνων τῷ
ποτε ἰασαμένῳ, καὶ κοινῆς τραπέζης μεμνημένος διασπᾷ τὴν πάρδαλιν,
NA ., p. , lines –). Everyone present is rightly astonished by this
paradox, wherein the lion’s memory subverts the everyday expectations of
the arena. When they learn Androkles’ story and shout for the freedom of
both man and lion, the focus finally shifts to the impending decision of the
emperor. The Platonic theorization of justice hovers in the background of
the scene, as the Roman arena offers to the emperor a variation on Socrates’
allegorical image of the tripartite soul: rational man abetted by the spirited
lion to vanquish the devouring beast. Aelian’s emperor must rise to the
challenge implied by this imagistic echo from Plato’s Republic and choose
his course of action: will he be a tyrant or a just king?
The indeterminacy with which the narrative closes, centered around the
question of imperial power, is echoed in Aelian’s language. Whereas Gellius
refers to the emperor as Caesar (accersitumque a Caesare Androclum quae-
sitamque causam, Gel. ..), Aelian refers to the emperor periphrasti-
cally as “the one producing the shows” (ὁ διδοὺς τὰς θέας, NA .,

 See Cameron : –. The Hadrianic anecdote, preserved also in the book De sententiis,
compiled for the tenth-century emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, echoes down the long
ages of the Roman Empire as shrewd advice for emperors on how to control an unruly mob
clamoring for the freedom of a slave.
 For the story’s interrogation of moral concepts and preconceptions, see Osborne : –.
 Lions 
p. , line ). The choice might superficially be explained away as the
attempt of a Hellenizing writer to avoid the barbarism of Latin titles (note
too Aelian’s periphrasis describing the Roman senator as one τῶν ἐκ τῆς
῾Ρωμαίων βουλῆς, p. , line ). But within a narrative framed by the
issue of Roman authority – that of masters over slaves, of emperors over the
dêmos – Aelian’s linguistic turn away from the very terms of that authority
paradoxically brings that power once more to the fore.

A different lion
The lion’s ambiguous association with Roman imperial power is established
yet again in a narrative extracted from the Libuka, a collection of African
lore by Juba II of Mauretania, the same writer to whom Aelian turned for
his programmatic opening chapter on the birds of Diomedes (NA .). This
chapter on an African lion is worth quoting in its entirety because of its
bearing on the related questions of kingship and power:
᾿Αμύνεσθαι δὲ τὸν προαδικήσαντα ὁ λέων οἶδε, καὶ εἰ μὴ
παραχρῆμα αὐτῷ τιμωρήσαι,
ἀλλά τε καὶ μετόπισθεν ἔχει κότον, ὄφρα τελέσσῃ,
ἐν στήθεσσιν ἑοῖσι.
καὶ τούτου μαρτύριον ᾿Ιόβας ὁ Μαυρούσιος ὁ τοῦ παρὰ ῾Ρωμαίοις
ὁμηρεύσαντος πατήρ. ἤλαυνέ ποτε διὰ τῆς ἐρήμης ἐπί τινα ἔθνη τῶν
ἀποστάντων, καί τις αὐτῷ τῶν παραθεόντων μειρακίσκος εὐγενὴς μὲν
καὶ ὡραῖος ἤδη δὲ θηρατικὸς λέοντά πως παρὰ τὴν ὁδὸν ἐκφανέντα
ἀκοντίῳ βάλλει, καὶ σκοποῦ μὲν ἔτυχε καὶ ἔτρωσεν, οὐ μὴν ἀπέκτεινε. κατὰ
σπουδὴν δὲ τῆς ἐλάσεως οὔσης, τὸ μὲν θηρίον ἀνεχώρησε, παρέδραμε δὲ
καὶ ὁ τρώσας καὶ οἱ λοιποί. ἐνιαυτοῦ γε μὴν διελθόντος ὁλοκλήρου ὁ μὲν
᾿Ιόβας κατορθώσας ἐφ’ ἃ ἐστάλη, τὴν αὐτὴν ὑποστρέφων ἔρχεται κατὰ τὸν
τόπον, ἔνθα ἔτυχεν ὁ λέων τρωθείς. καὶ ὄντος πλήθους παμπόλλου πρό
σεισι τὸ θηρίον ἐκεῖνο, καὶ τῶν μὲν ἄλλων ἀπέχεται, συλλαμβάνει δὲ τὸν
τρώσαντα πρὸ ἐνιαυτοῦ, καὶ τὸν θυμόν, ὅνπερ οὖν παρὰ τὸν χρόνον τὸν
προειρημένον ἐφύλαττεν, ἀθρόον ἐκχεῖ καὶ διασπᾷ τὸ μειράκιον γνωρίσας.
ἐτιμώρησε δὲ οὐδείς, φοβηθέντες ὀργὴν λέοντος ἰσχυρὰν καὶ δεινῶς ἐκπληκ
τικήν· ἄλλως τε καὶ ἡ πορεία ἤπειγεν. (NA .)
And the lion knows how to defend itself against one who has committed
an injustice against it first, even if it should not punish him right away,
“but it keeps its anger in its heart for a later time until it might bring it
to completion.” And Juba of Mauretania, the father of the one who was
a hostage among the Romans, is evidence of this. He was marching once
through the desert toward some nations of those who had revolted, and
one of those marching alongside him, a noble, handsome young man and
one already skilled in the hunt, throws his javelin at a lion that appeared,
 Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship
I suppose, by the road, and he hit his mark and inflicted a wound, but he
did not kill it. And since the march was in haste, the beast withdrew, and
the one who wounded it ran by with the rest. When a full year had passed,
Juba, having succeeded in what he set out to do, upon his return journey
along the same road he comes to the place where the lion happened to have
been wounded. And in the midst of the great throng, that beast attacks,
and it abstains from the others, but seizes the one who had wounded him
the year before, and the anger that it was preserving for the aforementioned
length of time it pours out all at once and tears apart the young man when it
recognizes him. And no one punished it, fearing the lion’s anger, which was
powerful and terribly frightening. And anyway, their journey was pressing.
Though Aelian states clearly at the beginning of the chapter that his mor-
alizing theme is the lion’s ability to bear a grudge, he embeds within that
statement a quotation from Homer’s Iliad that emphasizes also the political
context of the story. The verses (Il. .–) evoke the scene of Kalkhas’
reluctance to speak out in the Achaean assembly for fear of reprisal from
Agamemnon. Further examination of Kalkhas’ speech makes the political
point clearly: “for a king is mightier when he becomes angry at a man of
lesser rank” (κρείσσων γὰρ βασιλεὺς ὅτε χώσεται ἀνδρὶ χέρηϊ, Il. .).
The allusion suggests that there is another theme to this story, a theme that,
while not stated as explicitly as the moralizing theme of the lion’s anger,
is nevertheless vividly brought out from beginning to end. The Homeric
allusion reminds us that dealing with a king can be dangerous, requiring
tact, subtlety, and a degree of circumlocution. The reader is already moti-
vated, therefore, to wonder what Aelian is up to by asserting that his story
is about one thing while providing a sophisticated literary allusion that
suggests that there is something else at issue. It seems, in other words, that
Aelian himself, like Kalkhas, is reluctant to state his theme outright within
a Severan context and has instead camouflaged this narrative about kingly
authority and imperial power as a merely curious anecdote about a lion.
It is significant, too, that Aelian preserves the frame within which Juba
originally narrated the episode, as he carefully informs us that the Juba in
the story, that is, Juba I, is “the father of the one who was a hostage among
the Romans” (ὁ τοῦ παρὰ ῾Ρωμαίοις ὁμηρεύσαντος πατήρ, NA .). His
son, Juba II and Aelian’s literary source for this chapter, was raised at the
court of the emperor Augustus and received the very best education that
an elite Roman could receive. It was also thanks to Augustus that the
young Juba, a Numidian, was placed on the throne of neighboring Mau-
retania in  bce. Juba’s literary and political identities were therefore
 Roller : –.
 Lions 
shaped by Rome. But the story of how the young African prince ends up
at the court of Rome’s first emperor is not a happy one. Juba’s father had
aligned himself with Pompey during the civil war with Julius Caesar, but
after Pompey’s death, and failing to stem Caesar’s advances in Africa, Juba
committed suicide in  bce alongside Marcus Petreius, one of Scipio’s
lieutenants. Caesar therefore made Juba’s kingdom tributary to Rome, and
he brought Juba’s son to Rome itself to be paraded in triumph as a symbol
of his African victory. What we have, therefore, in Aelian’s chapter on the
avenging African lion, is a son’s literary reminiscence of the father whom he
never knew and of a time before the rupture in his nation’s history caused
by Rome’s civil wars.
The political background is reinforced by the fact that the story transpires
during a military campaign when Juba “was marching once through the
desert toward some nations of those who had revolted” (ἤλαυνέ ποτε διὰ
τῆς ἐρήμης ἐπί τινα ἔθνη τῶν ἀποστάντων, NA .). The narrative then
concludes a year later, when Juba “succeeded in what he set out to do”
(κατορθώσας ἐφ’ ἃ ἐστάλη), i.e. to quash a rebellion. The episode of the
lion’s wounding and eventual vengeance are the results of the expression
of Juba’s own imperial power over neighboring nations. The world of
animals and the world of men are thus intertwined in a series of imperial
transformations, as first the rebels of Aelian’s nameless African nations are
reincorporated within the Numidian kingdom, and then Numidia itself is
absorbed by Rome.
Against this background is the ambivalent power of the lion itself, which,
as we have seen, may be either advantageous or dangerous. This episode
is in stark contrast to the tale of Androkles and the lion, discussed above,
a tale of communion between man and animal in which the moment
of recognition results in a scene that is so extraordinary in its appeal to
human emotion that it subverts the expectations of the Roman arena and
potentially also the Roman political order. The story of this African lion,
however, while also about a lion’s capacity for memory over a long period
of time, climaxes not with mutual affection between man and beast, but
with the animal’s violent retaliation against a man. The parallelism between
the two scenes is strengthened by Aelian’s use of the same verbs to describe
the recognition between man and lion (γνωρίσας, ., p. , line ;
ἐγνώρισε, p. , lines  and ) as well as each lion’s attack, as one tears
apart (διασπᾷ) the man who wounded it and the other tears apart (διασπᾷ)
the leopard attacking his human friend in the arena. Furthermore, each

 App. BC ..
 Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship
lion’s violent attack is described alternatively as “defending the one who
once healed it” (ἀμύνων τῷ ποτε ἰασαμένῳ, NA ., p. , lines –
) and, by contrast, “defending itself against one who has committed an
injustice against it first” (᾿Αμύνεσθαι δὲ τὸν προαδικήσαντα, .).
What accounts for the divergent endings is, however, not the different
characters of the lions, but the different behavior of the human agent in
each story. Androkles, though a slave because of the vagaries of fortune,
nevertheless becomes the lion’s healer and intimate companion, sharing
meals and shelter. The protagonist of this story, however, could not be
more different: he is young, noble, and good-looking, a candidate for
romance perhaps, and – this is especially interesting – he is a man skilled
in the hunt (θηρατικός). Whereas Androkles played the role of healer, this
anonymous Numidian soldier inflicts a wound for the sake of sport. It
would have been better for the young man if the throw of his javelin had
been fatal, for by merely wounding the lion he arouses the lion’s lasting
anger and justly pays for his flippant action with his life: it is worth noting
that at the beginning of the chapter Aelian implies that the lion’s eventual
retaliation is a form of justice, as the young man is described proleptically
as someone “committing an injustice first” (τὸν προαδικήσαντα). Taken
together, therefore, the story of Androkles and the lion and this tale of a
lion’s just revenge speak to the recurring theme of man’s ethical relationship
to power. Androkles’ humane action secures for him a powerful defender,
while the aggressive behavior of the Numidian soldier marks him as a prey
of “the lion’s anger, which was powerful and terribly frightening” (ὀργὴν
λέοντος ἰσχυρὰν καὶ δεινῶς ἐκπληκτικήν).
Roller notes that “Juba I had a close association with the lion and placed
it on his coins, and by the Augustan period they had come to be proverbially
associated with the world of Numidian and Mauretanian royalty.” The
tradition of issuing coins with the image of the lion was continued by Juba
II as well as by his son Ptolemaios. Ptolemaios’ own royal pretensions
antagonized the emperor Gaius, who had Ptolemaios murdered, resulting
in Mauretania’s failed revolt against Rome and eventual bifurcation by the
emperor Claudius. Septimius Severus, however, revived the iconography
of the African kings after he came to power in  ce: the lion appears
on numerous coins issued during his reign commemorating the emperor’s
African origins. Another series of coins depict the lion as an attribute of
the Dea Caelestis, the Goddess of Heaven, originally a Punic deity that
 Roller : . For lion imagery on the coins of Juba I, see Mazard :  (#). For the
association of lions with the kingdom of Mauretania, see Hor. Carm. ..–.
 Mazard :  (#–) and – (#–).  Tac. Ann. .–; D.C. ., ..
 Lions 
was Romanized after the destruction of Carthage in  bce. These coins
were struck to commemorate some imperial favor (indulgentia) granted to
the North African city by the Augusti, meaning Severus and his sons.
Lions were also famously part of the visual repertoire of the emperor
Caracalla. A number of coins struck during his reign depict a radiate lion
clutching a thunderbolt in its jaws; in this instance, Caracalla was drawing
upon the animal’s celestial associations with the sun god. It has been
suggested that this celestial lion imagery was characteristic of the Emesene
cult of Elagabal, but Aelian’s chapters reveal that the lion was a solar
symbol also in the religious iconography of Egypt, and so perhaps doubly
attractive to Caracalla (see above). But the lion was not only a heavenly
creature for the emperor. Cassius Dio reports that Caracalla was thrilled
when, while on campaign against the Parthians, a lion ran down from the
mountains and fought alongside him. He also had a personal bodyguard
of Scythians and Germans, whom he called “lions.” In his retelling of the
story of Androkles and the lion, Aelian may even have been motivated by
an episode in  ce concerning the Egyptian Serapio, who was thrown to
a lion for having confronted Caracalla with the prophecy of the emperor’s
impending death. But, according to Cassius Dio, when he was facing the
beast, Serapio only had to extend his hand and the lion refused to touch
him, at which point Serapio was slain by Caracalla’s guards. Finally, there
is the notice that Caracalla, like the Hellenistic rulers catalogued by Aelian
at NA ., used to surround himself with lions at all times, one of which
was a special pet called Akinakes (the word for a Persian short sword)
that was his companion both at table and in bed (ὁμοτράπεζον ὁμόκλινόν
τε). It was a bad omen when, after having been disturbed by a dream in
which his father Septimius Severus appeared to him and warned him that
he would avenge Caracalla’s murder of Geta, his favorite lion Akinakes
seized him and tore his clothes. These stories recall the ambivalence
communicated by the first two generations of Severan emperors with their
use of the imagery of the African lion, positioning themselves alternatively
as just defenders of the empire and as tyrannical agents of cruel, gratuitous
violence. Though Aelian does not write about Severan kingship in explicit
 For the lion as an attribute of Africa on the coins of Septimius Severus, see CREBM . (#),
 (#),  (#),  (#),  (#),  (#, ); RIC .. (#),  (#), –
(#, ). As an attribute of Dea Caelestis, see CREBM .– (#–),  (#–),
, ,  (#), – (#); RIC  (#),  (#–), – (#–, , ).
See also Birley :  and Baharal . On the Dea Caelestis, see Levick : .
 CREBM .ccvii, – (#–),  (#–),  (#), – (#), – (#–
); RIC  (#),  (#), – (#), – (#, , , , , ).
 D.C. .., .–, ., .–.
 Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship
terms as an historian of contemporary events, he nevertheless expresses his
interest in the ideology of Roman kingship through his manipulation of
the discourse on lions, a quintessential element in the symbolic vocabulary
of the Severan emperors.

Eagles
The tradition of eagles as symbols of Roman power needs little elaboration.
The bird was from the earliest times associated with Jupiter, which paral-
leled the eagle’s association with Zeus in Greek myth. In the Republican
period, there is the famous story of Gaius Marius, who, when he was a boy,
caught in his cloak an eagle’s nest containing seven chicks, an omen which
was believed to presage his future political and military supremacy. Later,
when he reformed the military at the end of the second century bce, Marius
eliminated the use of all other animals as decoration for the standards and
thenceforth the eagle became the special symbol for the Roman legions,
whether in camp or marching into battle. So successful was the Marian
innovation that by the time of Cicero’s consulship ( bce), the traitor
Lucius Catilina appropriated the eagle symbol as a means of legitimizing
his attempt to seize Rome. The eagle also assisted the transition from
the Republic to the Imperial period, as it became an effective symbol for
communicating Augustus’ role as civic benefactor: in a series of images
beginning in  bce, the eagle is seen bestowing the corona civica, a crown
of oak leaves that was traditionally a military honor awarded to soldiers
who had rescued a fellow soldier in battle. In this new context, Augustus is
figured as having rescued the Roman people from the certain destruction
of civil war. But soon the image of Jupiter’s eagle bearing the crown also
came to connote monarchical authority.
In his many chapters on the eagle, Aelian foregrounds several interrelated
themes: its association with kingship, its affection for human beings, and
the anxiety surrounding genuine paternity. The eagle receives its most
positive depiction when its association with kingship and its affection for
human beings intersect. In one chapter, for example, the only Classical
Greek source on the ancient Mesopotamian king Gilgamesh, Aelian tells
the story of how an eagle rescued the infant Gilgamos when he was thrown
from the top of a citadel because his grandfather was upset by an oracle
 Plu. Mar. .–.  Plin. Nat. ..
 Cic. Catil. ., ..  Zanker : –.
 The eagle and kingship: NA ., ., ., ., .; its affection for human beings: ., .,
., ., .; the issue of paternity: ., ., ..
 Eagles 
proclaiming that the baby would usurp his position as king (NA .). The
eagle in the story is not just the superior guardian of the baby, but serves
also as the instrument that secures for Gilgamos his divinely authorized
kingship. Furthermore, despite the eagle’s generally predatory nature, Zeus’
own eagle abstains from the flesh of living creatures, “even though it has
heard nothing of Pythagoras of Samos” (Πυθαγόρου τοῦ Σαμίου διακούσας
οὐδέν, .). Once again, the purity of the Pythagorean lifestyle represents
for Aelian the philosophical ideal of a divinely sanctioned kingship. Even
if kingship is by its nature violent and predatory, Aelian suggests that there
is also a more virtuous possibility, a heavenly, benevolent, transcendent
kingship.
Equally fascinating for their relevance to the political milieu of the
Severan period are the chapters in which Aelian discusses the tradition of
the eagle’s concern over the legitimacy of its brood:
βάσανος δέ οἱ τῶν νεοττῶν τῶν γνησίων ἐκείνη ἐστίν. ἀντίους τῇ αὐγῇ τοῦ
ἡλίου ἵστησιν αὐτοὺς ἀργοὺς ἔτι καὶ ἀπτῆνας· καὶ ἐὰν μὲν σκαρδαμύξῃ τις
τὴν ἀκμὴν τῆς ἀκτῖνος δυσωπούμενος, ἐξεώσθη τῆς καλιᾶς, καὶ ἀπεκρίθη
τῆσδε τῆς ἑστίας· ἐὰν δὲ ἀντιβλέψῃ καὶ μάλα ἀτρέπτως, ἀμείνων ἐστὶν
ὑπονοίας καὶ τοῖς γνησίοις ἐγγέγραπται, ἐπεὶ αὐτῷ πῦρ τὸ οὐράνιον ἡ
τοῦ γένους ἀδέκαστός τε καὶ ἄγραπτος ἀληθῶς ἐστιν ἐγγραφή. (NA .)
And the test of the young rightfully begotten to it is as follows. It places
them opposite the beam of the sun while they are still slow and without
wings. And if one blinks because it has trouble seeing due to the blazing
of the ray, it is expelled from the nest and rejected from this hearth. But
if it returns its glance and does not look away, it is above suspicion and
is registered among the lawfully born, since for it the heavenly fire is truly
both the impartial and unwritten registration of the species.

The notice would have resonated during the Severan period, when a family
vaunting its relationship with an eastern sun god also claimed legitimate
descent from the Antonine dynasty. Septimius Severus himself invented
the story of his adoption by Marcus Aurelius in order to legitimize his
seizure of power after the assassination of Pertinax. Severus’ son Cara-
calla therefore took the name Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Severus himself
even demanded the deification of his “brother” Commodus, and por-
traits of members of the Severan family were clearly modeled on Antonine
portraits. This strategy of legitimization attracted criticism from sena-
tors, and Cassius Dio reports that, because Severus adopted himself into

 Birley : , , ; Levick : ; Newby : –.
 Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship
the family of Marcus Aurelius, one prominent wag named Auspex con-
gratulated him “for having found a father.” Despite the precedence for
adoption as an acceptable means of securing dynastic ties in Roman politi-
cal life, Severus’ retroactive claim clearly rankled, and Aelian’s notice about
the eagle’s test of its chicks’ legitimacy penetrates to the heart of the matter,
playing on the very artificiality of adoption as a demonstration of kinship,
a performance wholly unnecessary among these kings of birds. Severus had
to be “registered” (ἐγγραφέντος, D.C. ..) into the family of Marcus,
but Aelian playfully embellishes the eagle’s natural paternity test as a para-
doxical “registration without writing” (ἄγραπτος ἀληθῶς ἐστιν ἐγγραφή,
NA .). The problem of dynastic legitimacy persisted in the period of cri-
sis and confusion after the assassination of Caracalla in  ce. The young
Avitus, a grand-nephew of Julia Domna, presented a successful challenge
to Macrinus’ usurpation of the throne precisely because either Julia Maesa
(sister of Julia Domna) or other opportunists in Syria fabricated a story that
Avitus was a naturally born son of Caracalla. This Avitus, of course, came
to be known as Elagabalus because he held the hereditary priesthood of
the Emesene god Elagabal, with whom he would later self-identify. Aelian’s
story of the eagle’s paternity test by means of the sun, the “fire of heaven”
(πῦρ τὸ οὐράνιον) would certainly have evoked for contemporary readers
the case of the young Syrian emperor who claimed legitimacy both by
paternity and by the divine authority of the sun god.
Above all, however, Aelian is interested in the eagle’s predatory quality
and the fear that this bird of prey inspires. When they hear the fluttering of
its wings in the distance, the eagle’s intended victims all seek concealment
from the open sky and the bird’s impending attack. Not only does it
seek out prey of small or moderate size (snakes, for example, and hares
and other birds), but it also is daring and skilled enough to take down
young deer and even full-grown bulls. And like the lion, it pollutes its prey
with its malodorous breath, thus repelling scavengers from approaching
the remains of its victims. There is, however, a series of animals that
are successful either in eluding capture or resisting the eagle outright:
the goose, the swan, the octopus, and the crow. It is worth ending this
chapter on Aelian’s interest in kingship by dwelling on these creatures of
resistance.
In a fascinating chapter about how one particular victim, the goose,
attempts to survive against the eagle, Aelian offers associative links between

 D.C. ...  Hdn. ., D.C. ..–..

 NA ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ..
 Eagles 
the eagle’s predatory quality and the alimentary prudence of the goose, as
well as issues of kingship and Roman imperial power:

Οἱ δὲ χῆνες διαμείβοντες τὸν Ταῦρον τὸ ὄρος δεδοίκασι τοὺς ἀετούς,

καὶ ἕκαστός γε αὐτῶν λίθον ἐνδακόντες, ἵνα μὴ κλάζωσιν, ὥσπερ οὖν
ἐμβαλόντες σφίσι στόμιον, διαπέτονται σιωπῶντες, καὶ τοὺς ἀετοὺς τὰ
πολλὰ ταύτῃ διαλανθάνουσι. θερμότατος ἄρα ὢν καὶ διαπυρώτατος τὴν
φύσιν ὁ χὴν φιλόλουτρός ἐστι καὶ νήξεσι χαίρει καὶ τροφαῖς μάλιστα ταῖς
ὑγροτάταις καὶ πόαις καὶ θριδακίναις καὶ τοῖς λοιποῖς, ὅσα αὐτοῖς ἔνδοθεν
ψῦχος ἐργάζεται· εἰ δὲ καὶ ἐξαυαίνοιτο ὑπὸ τοῦ λιμοῦ, δάφνης φύλλον οὐκ
ἂν φάγοι, οὐδ’ ἂν πάσαιτο ῥοδοδάφνης οὔτε ἑκὼν οὔτε ἄκων· οἶδε γὰρ ὅτι
τεθνήξεται τούτων τινὸς ἐμφαγών. ἄνθρωποι δὲ ὑπὸ σοφίας ἐπιβουλεύον
ται καὶ εἰς τροφὴν καὶ εἰς ὕπνον. μυρίοι γοῦν καὶ πίνοντές τι κακὸν κατέπιον,
ὡς ᾿Αλέξανδρος, καὶ ἐσθίοντες, ὡς Κλαύδιος ὁ ῾Ρωμαῖος καὶ Βρεττανικὸς ὁ
τούτου παῖς· καὶ κατακοιμηθέντες οὐκ ἐξανέστησαν χρήσει φαρμάκου, οἳ
μὲν ἑκόντες τοῦτο σπάσαντες, οἳ δὲ ἐπιβουλευθέντες. (NA .)
And geese, when crossing the Tauros mountain, fear eagles, and each of
them, biting on a stone, so that they might not scream, just as if having
inserted a bridle bit, they fly across in silence, and in this way often elude
the eagles. Indeed being most hot and fiery by nature, the goose is fond of
bathing and rejoices in swimming and especially in food that is most healthy,
in grasses and lettuces and the rest, whatever makes them cool inside. But
even if it should become parched with hunger, it would not eat the leaves of
the laurel, nor would it taste the rose-laurel, either willingly or unwillingly.
For it knows that it will die when it has eaten any one of these. But human
beings are plotted against craftily, both when they eat and when they sleep.
And numerous men even when drinking have drunk down something bad,
as Alexander, and when eating, as Claudius the Roman and Britannicus his
son. And having been laid to sleep, they did not revive because of the use of
poison, some having taken the draught willingly, others having been plotted
against.

Fear of the eagle inspires the crafty device of the geese: by weighing down
the tongue with a stone, they impose silence upon themselves and thus
do not let the eagle in the vicinity know of their presence. The first part
of the passage begs to be read allegorically: keeping one’s mouth closed
is one prudent way of dealing with dangerous tyrants. The allegorical
interpretation becomes more pointed when it is considered that Aelian
refers to the goose as a creature that is “most hot and fiery by nature”
(θερμότατος ἄρα ὢν καὶ διαπυρώτατος), a quality, already noted, that
Aelian associates with himself as an intellectual in search of knowledge
and wisdom. This whole passage, then, suggests the strained relationship
between hot-headed intellectuals and figures of political authority. Just as
 Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship
alimentary imagery was prominent in the discourse on justice and kingship
in relation to bees and lions, so here too Aelian focuses on the goose’s
knowledge about what and what not to eat. Discussion of the goose’s craftily
self-imposed silence leads to a consideration of the grasses and lettuces that
the goose eats to cool its fiery nature. But Aelian insists that, even if it
were suffering from starvation, the goose will not eat either the poisonous
laurel or the rose-laurel. There may be here some symbolic significance to
the association of the laurel (daphnê) with the cult of Apollo and prophetic
speech, but rather than dwell on the religious, Aelian instead shifts back
to the political, with the sententious statement that human beings are
often the victims of murderous plots by means of poisoning. The Roman
examples that Aelian mentions here, Claudius and Britannicus, were two
famous victims of the emperor Nero – his adoptive father and brother,
respectively – that he or his mother Agrippina killed to secure his own
tyrannical rule. There seems to have been a renewed interest in the story
during the Severan period. I do not mean to suggest that Aelian was
harboring fantasies of assassination or poisoning. On the contrary, his
focus here is not on the evil character of paradigmatically tyrannical figures
like Nero, but rather on the ability of those figures that are able to elude
the violence and plotting of eagles and tyrants alike.
Unlike the goose, though, the swan, the octopus, and the crow are more
daring in their willingness to confront the eagle’s violent attack. The swan,
for Aelian a symbol of song, poetry, and the power of the Muses and
Apollo, receives special treatment in the NA, and in Book , Aelian cites
Aristotle as his authority that there are bonds of peace (εἰρηναῖα) and a
truce (ἔνσπονδα) between swans and all other birds. The eagle is the only
bird to transgress against this unwritten law that protects the swan. The
eagle, however, “never wins, but is always defeated not only by the strength
of the swan that is fighting him, but also by the justice of the one defending
himself” (οὐδεπώποτε ἐκράτησεν, ἡττήθη δὲ ἀεὶ μὴ μόνον σὺν τῇ ῥώμῃ
τοῦ κύκνου μαχομένου, ἀλλὰ καὶ σὺν τῇ δίκῃ ἀμυνομένου, NA ., p. ,
lines –). If the swan, even when appropriated from the more scientific
zoology of Aristotle, is a figure for the humanistic qualities of literature,
then this notice reflects a mentality that pits the literary artist against the
injustice and violence of the tyrannical ruler, and in this mentality, the
literary artist optimistically gets the upper hand every time. Furthermore,
the swan is justified in his reciprocal use of violence because he is a defender
 Tac. Ann. .–, .–; Suet. Cl. –, Nero ; D.C. ., ..
 Philostr. VA .., ., ..  NA ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ..
 Cf. Arist. HA a; b; fr. . Gig.
 Eagles 
on the side of right. The point is repeated with much the same language
again in the final book of the NA: “and [swans] are also brave when it
comes to strength, and they take courage in it, not, however, so that they
initiate injustice, but so that they defend themselves against the initiator.
Easily therefore they get the better even of eagles, whenever those dare to
attack them” (εἰσὶ δὲ καὶ πρὸς ῥώμην ἄλκιμοι, καὶ θαρροῦσιν αὐτῇ, οὐ
μὴν ὥστε ἄρχειν ἀδίκων ἀλλ’ ἀμύνεσθαι τὸν ἄρξαντα. ῥᾳδίως οὖν καὶ
τῶν ἀετῶν περιγίνονται, ὅταν ἐκεῖνοι τολμήσωσιν ἐπιθέσθαι αὐτοῖς, NA
.). It is not by accident that Aelian repeats himself; he is fully aware
that this notice of the swan’s ability to stand up to the eagle in Book 
hearkens back to the earlier chapter in Book : “and I spoke earlier about
the manner of their battle” (καὶ εἶπον ἀνωτέρω τῆς μάχης τὸν τρόπον,
NA .). The relationship between the swan and the eagle sticks with
Aelian as the composer of an animal miscellany that clearly has a political
dimension, and it is a relationship that he emphatically wants the reader
to remember.
The octopus, too, turns out to be a surprisingly able opponent of the
overly daring eagle, and also like the swan, the octopus is not the aggressor,
but the defender against this king of birds. Aelian’s chapter on the battle of
the octopus and the eagle is richly textured with classical allusions, making
it clear that his interests are not strictly zoological, but also political. The
entire passage is worth considering:
Πολύποδος εἰς οὖς ἐμὸν καὶ ἐκεῖνο ἧκεν. ἦν πέτρα προήκουσα μέν, οὐ
μὴν ἄγαν ὑψηλή. οὐκοῦν πολύπους ποτὲ ἀνερπύσας εἶτα ἥπλωσε τὰς
πλεκτάνας, καὶ μάλα γε ἀσμένως ὑπεθάλπετο (καὶ γὰρ οὖν καὶ χειμέρια
ἐδόκει πως), οὐ μὴν ἑαυτὸν εἰς τὴν χρόαν τῆς πέτρας ἐκτρέψας ἤδη ἦν.
πεφύκασι δὲ ἄρα δρᾶν τοῦτο οἱ πολύποδες τὰς εἰς ἑαυτοὺς ἐπιβουλὰς
φυλαττόμενοι καὶ μέντοι καὶ αὐτοὶ τοὺς ἰχθῦς ἐλλοχῶντες. ἰδὼν οὖν ὀξὺ
μέν, ἑαυτῷ δὲ οὐκ ἀγαθὸν τὸ θήραμα ἀετός, ὥσπερ οὖν ὁρμῆς τε ἅμα καὶ
πτερῶν εἶχεν ἐμπηδᾷ τῷ πολύποδι, καὶ μέντοι καὶ δεῖπνον ἕξειν ἕτοιμον
ἑαυτῷ τε καὶ τοῖς παισὶ τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ κατέγραφεν. πλόκαμοι δὲ ἄρα ἰχθύος
ἐκείνου περιβάλλουσι τῷ ἀετῷ σφᾶς αὐτούς, καὶ ἀπρὶξ ἐχόμενοι εἶτα
ἕλκουσι κάτω τὸν ἔχθιστον, καὶ χανὼν λύκος ὡς ἂν εἴποις εἶτα μέντοι
νεκρὸς ἐπενήχετο τῇ θαλάττῃ ὁ ἀετὸς ὑπὲρ τοῦ δείπνου. μυρία μὲν δὴ
τοιαῦτα πάσχουσιν ὄρνιθες, πλείω δὲ ἄνθρωποι· ἐν δὲ τοῖς ᾀδομένοις
ὑφ’ ῾Ηροδότου Μασσαγέταις ὁ Καμβύσου Κῦρος ὁ ἕτερος καὶ μέντοι καὶ
Πολυκράτης εἰς ᾿Οροίτου σπεύσας ὡς τὸν χρυσὸν ἁρπασόμενος καὶ ἄλλος

τεύχων ὡς ἑτέρῳ τις ἑῷ κακὸν ἥπατι τεύχει.

καὶ ταῦτα μὲν οὐκ οἶδε τὰ ἄλογα, ἄνθρωποι δὲ εἰδότες οὐ φυλάττον
ται. καὶ τί δεῖ γλώττης καὶ λόγων καὶ διδασκάλων καὶ πληγῶν, ὦ Κῦρε
 Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship
καὶ Πολύκρατες; τοὺς δὲ ἄλλους ἐῶ· τί γάρ μοι κωφοῖς καὶ ἀνοήτοις συμ
βουλεύειν τὰ λυσιτελέστατα; (NA .)
The following too about the octopus has reached my ear. There was a
rock jutting out, not very high. Accordingly, an octopus once creeping up
then spread out its tentacles, and it very much welcomed the warmth (for it
seemed to be wintry), but had not yet turned itself into the color of the rock.
And indeed octopuses do this by nature, both when they defend themselves
against attacks and even when they themselves lie in ambush against fish.
Then, seeing keenly, though it was not a good prey for himself, an eagle,
rushing as fast as he can with his wings, leaps upon the octopus. And indeed
he reckoned that he would have a meal both for himself and for his children.
But the arms of that fish wrap themselves around the eagle, and holding
on tightly they then drag their enemy down, and the gaping wolf, as you
might say, the eagle was floating dead upon the surface of the sea because
of its meal. Countless such things do birds suffer, but more so do humans.
And among the Massagetai celebrated by Herodotus, Cyrus the Second, the
son of Kambuses and indeed even Polukrates who hastened to the house
of Oroites intending to steal the gold and another man “fashioning harm
for another, fashions harm for his own heart.” And irrational creatures do
not know these things, but human beings who do know them do not guard
against them. And what need is there of the tongue and words and teachers
and beatings, o Cyrus and Polukrates? And I pass over the others. For why
should I offer the most profitable counsel to the deaf and to fools?
In the opening image of the octopus unfurling its tentacles as it suns itself
upon the rock, Aelian uses one of his favorite verbs (haploun), more typically
attributed to birds as they unfurl their wings and seen for the first time
in the NA in the opening chapter on the birds of Diomedes. Just as the
octopus is able to camouflage itself upon its rocky setting, so too, as Aelian’s
language suggests, can it adapt itself to the behaviors and movements of
other animals. Aelian emphasizes the octopus’ stealthy adaptability also
in the important opening chapter of the Varia historia, which Domitilla
Campanile has even suggested serves as a figure for Aelian’s literary aesthetic
and as a preface for the work as a whole (see Chapter ). This passage on
the octopus that vanquishes the attacking eagle therefore may be read as
a statement about the political dynamic latent in Aelian’s particular brand
of literary activity.
The literary allusions reinforce this reading. At first the eagle is likened
to another animal, the wolf of fable whose gaping mouth was a sign of
his uncontrollable hunger and disappointed expectations. The parallel

 NA ., ., ., ., ., ..  Campanile : –.

 Babr.; Eub. fr. . Kock.
 Eagles 
exempla from Herodotus make the political point explicit, as the eagle
is compared with the Persian king Cyrus the Great and with the tyrant
Polukrates of Samos, both of whom met their gruesome ends because
they could not keep their imperial desires and ambitions in check. Even
Aelian’s quotation of a favorite line from Callimachus, that “someone
fashioning harm for another, fashions harm for his own heart” (τεύχων ὡς
ἑτέρῳ τις ἑῷ κακὸν ἥπατι τεύχει, (Call. fr. . Pfeiffer), has its origins in
the most ancient discourse on kingship in Greek literature: the verse is a
reworking of a sententious statement by Hesiod in the Works and Days, in
a passage where the poet warns unjust kings to straighten up, or else they
will receive just punishment from Zeus.
However sure he is of the value of his political advice, cautioning kings to
be wary of their excessive desires, Aelian is nevertheless pessimistic about
the receptiveness of his target audience. In the conclusion of the pas-
sage, Aelian apostrophizes Cyrus the Great and Polukrates directly, though
by implication – “I pass over the others,” he says – he is speaking to
all those who wield authority. Aelian’s experience of imperial power has
led him to the hopeless certainty that the appetitve element is bound to
reign supreme over the rational element within the soul of kings, despite
the prudent advice offered by philosophers and intellectuals: neither their
words nor even their thrashings will steer kings toward virtue. It is, there-
fore, useless, Aelian says with resignation, to preach “to the deaf and to
fools.”
Lest Aelian be mistaken for exclusively harboring radical fantasies of
resistance against his Roman sovereigns, his chapter on the crow offers
a more sober depiction of the relationship between the literati and their
emperors in the third century. He says that it is typical of crows to tease
(ἐρεσχελεῖν, NA .) eagles, but the eagles pay them little mind, flying
at a far higher altitude. Aelian’s language here becomes equally elevated,
as he says that the eagles “cut the ether itself, which is more lofty, with
swiftest wings” (τὸν αἰθέρα ὑψηλότερον ὄντα τοῖς ὠκίστοις τέμνουσιν
αὐτὸν πτεροῖς). Aelian is emphatic that the eagles are not afraid of the
crows that harass and caw at them from below, “for,” he says, “how could
anyone say this who knows well the strength of eagles?” (πῶς γὰρ ἂν τοῦτο
εἴποι τις, τὴν τῶν αἰετῶν ἀλκὴν καλῶς ἐπιστάμενος;). Rather, the eagles
allow the light talk of the crows below to go unchecked because of their
own magnanimity (ἰδίᾳ τινὶ μεγαλονοίᾳ).
 Hdt. .–, .–.  Cf. VH . and fr.  Hercher.
 οἷ τ’ αὐτῷ κακὰ τεύχει ἀνὴρ ἄλλῳ κακὰ τεύχων, Hes. Op. . On Callimachus’ appropriation of
the Hesiodic scene, see Nisetich : –, .
 Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship
One way of reading this passage is as a reflection of the pessimistic
role of the writer or intellectual within an Imperial setting. Aelian may
well have envisioned himself and contemporary men of letters as merely
being tolerated by the emperor, and he may have thought that the emperor
would have heard their philosophical advice as the yammering of crows. But
educated readers would also have recognized in Aelian’s passage an allusion
to Pindar’s second Olympian ode: “Wise is the man who knows much by
nature. But those who have learned, boisterous in their garrulity like a pair
of crows let them cry in vain against the divine bird of Zeus” (σοφὸς ὁ
πολλὰ εἰδὼς φυᾷ· μαθόντες δὲ λάβροι | παγγλωσσίᾳ κόρακες ὣς ἄκραντα
γαρυέτον | Διὸς πρὸς ὄρνιχα θεῖον, O. .– Bowra). Pindar contrasts
the innate talent of the wise man with the acquired skill of lesser men, and
the scholiasts indicate that the “pair of crows” is meant to represent Pindar’s
poetic rivals Bacchylides and Simonides, while “the divine bird of Zeus” is
meant to represent Pindar himself. If Aelian embeds this notice about crows
and eagles in his own text not just as a pessimistic bit of political theory but
as a gibe against his literary rivals in Rome, then it is interesting that the
Pindaric allusion assimilates Aelian himself to the eagle, the divine bird of
Zeus traditionally associated with kingship. Aelian’s restoration to eagles of
their traditional kingly qualities in this chapter – they are strong creatures
whose thoughts are as elevated as their station – is also an elevation of his
own status as a superior literary talent.

Conclusion
Whereas contemporary writers like Philostratus and Cassius Dio incorpo-
rate into their works fictionalized scenes of philosophers or intellectuals
speaking freely before their sovereigns and offering pointed advice about
how best to govern, Aelian’s treatment of the theme of kingship is more rad-
ically indirect. In his chapters on bees and the hive, Aelian offers a utopian
view of social organization as well as of the idealized philosopher king, a
benevolent ruler who loves his subjects and abstains from violence even
when he has the natural power to use it. The bee is also important for Aelian
because of its association with honey and honey’s traditional metaphorical
association with literature. In his Platonic conception of ideal kingship and
social organization, Aelian restores to literature by means of his positive
re-evaluation of the bee a politically significant role: literature – and espe-
cially a book like the NA – is not just a source of sweetness and pleasure,
but a medium for conveying philosophical virtues.
 Conclusion 
The Platonic background on kingship also informs Aelian’s chapters on
lions, which serve mainly as figures of royal strength. But an ambivalence
surrounding lions pervades these chapters. When properly harnessed, the
power of the lion may bolster man’s better endeavors, aiding it in its pursuit
of the heavenly virtues of proper kingship. But Aelian also emphatically
reminds his readers of the lion’s carnal appetites and how difficult it can be
to tame its fearsome nature. Thus the lion may also symbolize tyranny, a
brutal strength that is more aligned with the monstrous appetite, and less
with the rational element in the soul. This ambivalence, best illustrated in
the story of Androkles and the lion and in a parallel story that Aelian retells
from the pages of Juba’s Libuka, would have held a political relevance for
Aelian’s readers, as both Septimius Severus and Caracalla used the imagery
of lions to communicate the legitimacy of their rule and their African
origins, but also, consciously or not, the more violent and tyrannical side
of their authority.
Finally, the eagle had for centuries been a prominent symbol, first of
Roman military power, and then under the principate a symbol of Roman
imperial authority. At its most positive, the eagle is significant to Aelian
for its traditional association with kingship, its fabled affection for human
beings, its anxiety about the legitimacy of its brood, and its paternity test
by means of exposure to the god Helios. This last theme, upon which
Aelian especially focuses, would in Aelian’s own lifetime have certainly
evoked thoughts of Septimius Severus and Elagabalus, both of whom
sought to legitimize their reigns by fabricating genealogies that placed
them in a direct line of descent from Marcus Aurelius and the Antonine
emperors.
But the eagle also stands out for Aelian as a bird of prey, one of the more
troublesome aspects of its association with kingly power, given Aelian’s
conception of the ideal king as a creature of peace that abstains from
violence. This is reinforced by the noteworthy remark that, despite the
bird’s predatory nature, Zeus’ own eagle refrains from eating any living
creature. The eagle’s reputation for violence is complemented in the NA
by several chapters on those creatures that are capable of withstanding
its unforeseen attacks. The goose, the swan, the octopus, and the crow
all offer varying forms of resistance to the king of birds, ranging from
outright evasion, self-imposed silence, physical strength, and even a frank
outspokenness. In the end, though, Aelian’s remarks on the futility of trying
to offer philosophical advice to kings lead to the pessimistic figuration of
such outspokenness as the mere heckling of crows, noise that the eagles
 Bees, lions, eagles: Aelian and kingship
of the world may simply ignore as they cut their superior course through
the ether. But that superior course remains attractive to the philosophically
ambitious man of letters, and we may glimpse him from time to time
appropriating the symbolic vocabulary of kingly authority to vaunt his
own literary talent.
 c ha p te r 10

After animals: the women of the Varia historia

The Varia historia and Severan culture

Aelian followed the NA with another miscellany. In this new work, Aelian
turned away from animals and dealt more directly with human characters.
Alcibiades, Alexander the Great, Aristotle, Diogenes, the Dionysii of Syra-
cuse, Euripides, Plato, and Socrates (among many others) all make repeated
appearances in anecdotes that are sometimes humorous, sometimes merely
curious, and very often moralizing. In its present form, the collection lacks
a preface or epilogue such as those found in the NA. The first attestation
of the work in antiquity is from the fifth century ce Anthologion by John
of Stobi (Ioannes Stobaios), who refers to Aelian’s text several times as ἡ
σύμμικτος ἱστορία (“mixed history”). The tenth-century Souda lexicon,
however, refers to the work once as ποικίλη ἀφήγησις (“varied narration”)
and three times as the ποικίλη ἱστορία (“varied history”), the same title
given by the manuscripts of the text and as it is commonly known today.
Some of the passages that John of Stobi collected from Aelian’s work are
significantly different from the same passages that have been handed down
in the manuscripts of the Varied History (VH). In some cases, the text as it
appears in John’s collection is a slightly abbreviated version of what appears
in the manuscripts of the VH, while in other cases John’s version is longer
and a bit more elaborate. This suggests that the manuscripts represent
an epitomized or abbreviated version of the text; it remains uncertain how
much of the original text has been lost. Wilson has inferred from the work’s
“clearly unfinished state” that Aelian left the VH incomplete at the time of

 On the historical figures in the VH, see Prandi : –.

 Stob. .., .., .., .a., and ...
 Souda α .  Souda δ , κ , and φ .
 Longer versions in Stobaeus: VH . (Stob. ..), . (Stob. ..), . (Stob. ..), .
(Stob. ..), . (Stob. ..). Abbreviated versions in Stobaeus: VH . (Stob. ..), .
(Stob. ..), . (Stob. .a.).
 Wilson : –, Kindstrand : , Prandi : –.


 The women of the Varia historia
his death. This remains speculative, though: the apparently unfinished state
of the work may be the result of multiple processes of abbreviation, which
may additionally account for the absence of a preface and/or epilogue.
Two fragments by Aelian from the Souda, though lacking attribution to a
specific work, echo sentiments from the preface and epilogue of the NA
and may have been extracted from similar prefatory or concluding passages
in the VH. I agree, though, that Aelian must have composed the VH in
his later life, probably during the final years of Caracalla’s reign, through
the reign of Elagabalus, and into the reign of Alexander Severus. It is also
possible that there was a period of overlap between the time when Aelian
was finishing the NA and beginning the VH.
Even after completing the NA, Aelian was not quite finished with ani-
mals. The first fifteen chapters of the VH seem as if they are a continuation
of the NA. At the beginning of this new miscellany, we read of octopuses,
spiders, frogs, dogs, foxes, turtles, boars, lions, monkeys, goats, mice, ants,
swans, eagles, and pigeons. Domitilla Campanile has even suggested that
the first item in the collection could serve as a preface for the whole of the
VH: writing about the hunting and eating habits of the octopus, Aelian
figures that animal as a symbol of literary versatility and poikilia. Animals
in all their variety still hold the writer’s imagination.
But then suddenly the focus shifts from animals and the reader encoun-
ters Socrates, soberly awaiting death in prison. Apollodorus arrives bearing
an expensive, finely woven tunic of wool and a similar such cloak, which he
asks Socrates to wear when he drinks the hemlock so that his corpse might
await burial “in becoming style” (σὺν τῷ κόσμῳ, VH .) and “in a man-
ner not at all undignified” (οὐ πάνυ τι ἀδόξως). Socrates is disappointed
with Apollodorus’ gesture, and turning to Crito, Simmias, and Phaedo, he
wonders how Apollodorus could have such an opinion of him, “for if he
thinks that the one who in a little while will be lying at his feet ready and
for burial is me, then he evidently doesn’t know me.”
In this first chapter that is not about animals, Aelian nevertheless evokes
again an anxiety found in his previous work. Conjuring this reminiscence
of Socrates hearkens back to Aelian’s own self-fashioning as a Socratic
type in the preface and epilogue of the NA; here, too, though Socrates
persists as a critical figure. Apollodorus’ expensive, richly woven tunic and
cloak are like the putatively luxurious literary aesthetic that Aelian felt he
previously needed to defend. Just as Apollodorus, in his excessive care for

 Wilson : .  Frs.  and  Hercher;  and  Domingo-Forasté.

 Campanile : –.
 The Varia historia and Severan culture 
the appearance of his teacher’s corpse, failed to truly know Socrates, so
Aelian, in his indulgence in poikilia, fails to grasp true philosophy. For as
much as Aelian fashions himself as a Socratic figure, the cultural memory of
Socrates also paradoxically perpetuates the philosophically based criticism
of Aelian’s literary art.
But philosophy and morality are prominent throughout much of Aelian’s
new collection, and his decision to deal more directly with human behav-
ior (and not exclusively by contrast with the behavior of animals) suggests
renewed urgency. Stamm has argued that the urgent moralizing of the VH
reflects Aelian’s perception (shared by contemporaries like Cassius Dio and
Herodian) that luxuria or its Greek equivalent truphê had reached its acme
in Rome during the reign of Elagabalus. Furthermore, Aelian’s emphasis on
philanthrôpia, euergesia, and sôphrosunê may be said to celebrate the human-
ity, service, and moderation of Elagabalus’ successor, Alexander Severus. I
think Stamm is right that the moralizing and philosophical orientation of
the VH reflects contemporary cultural anxieties, though this was nothing
new for Aelian, as he indicates in the preface and epilogue of the NA that
that work arose out of his general discontent with Severan culture. The
NA was composed during the reigns of Septimius Severus and Caracalla;
with Elagabalus, Aelian’s moral discontent only intensified, to which his
diatribe Indictment of the Little Woman bears witness.
In the remaining sections of this chapter, the narratives about two dif-
ferent women – one a concubine, the other a virgin huntress – provide
the basis for an exploration of the flexible boundaries of truphê, the prime
target for moral criticism throughout the VH. Male effeminacy of the
kind that motivated Aelian to call Elagabalus a gunnis is just one man-
ifestation of truphê. More generally, truphê is “luxurious living” of any
kind and is perceived as a sign that the subject is incapable of resisting
the temptations of physical pleasure derived from any of the five senses.
The targets for criticism are varied and numerous: “many women of that
time” indulged in extravagant clothing and jewelry, nor are the women of
Attica exempt, as Aelian even alludes to a then well-known catalogue of
implements and ornaments used by Athenian women from a now lost play
by Aristophanes (., cf. Ar. fr.  K.–A.). Aelian also notes that among

 Stamm : –.  Ibid. –.

 On connections between the diatribe against Elagabalus and depictions of tyranny in the VH, see
Prandi : –.
 For a history of the criticism of truphê in Greek culture from the Archaic period, see Bernhardt
; Gorman and Gorman  offer a reassessment of the evidence in Athenaeus to show that
the theory of moral decline in the case of Sybaris is not Hellenistic but later.
 The women of the Varia historia
his favorite Athenians once upon a time even the men used to wear golden
grasshoppers in their hair and always had their slaves on hand to supply
a chair for sitting down (.). Whole societies could be corrupted by
truphê: Sybaris and Persia are only the most famous examples, but Aelian
also mentions Colophon, Corinth, and Cyrene (., ., .). Proof of
truphê among the Greeks generally is their practice of mixing perfume into
their wine (.). A number of men from the past are singled out for
their self-indulgent lifestyles: Straton of Sidon (.), Nikokles of Cyprus
(.), Poliarkhos the Athenian (.), Polukrates of Samos (.), Demetrios
of Phalerum (.), Dionysius of Heraklea (.), Smindurides of Sybaris
(., .), Nauklides of Sparta (.), and Hanno of Carthage (.).
Socrates too, the exemplar of self-control, is vulnerable to accusations of
truphê: the philosopher Diogenes used to say that “even Socrates himself
indulged in luxurious living (τρυφῆσαι), for he paid too much attention to
his little house and his little couch and even sandals, which indeed Socrates
used to wear sometimes” (.). The relationship between luxurious living
and self-control connects truphê with the philosophical ideals of sôphrosunê
and enkrateia. These were masculine ideals, hence the charge of effeminacy
leveled at any man who failed to demonstrate appropriate moderation and
self-control. The policing of truphê pervaded all kinds of social encounters,
but at its most extreme it was institutionalized within Spartan culture.
Aelian quotes a Spartan law requiring the ephors every ten days to examine
the bodies of ephebes for masculine complexion and physical definition;
their clothing, too, had to have the proper masculine style; and Spartan
cooks were expected to prepare meat simply, while those practicing more
elaborate culinary arts were banished (.).
Decent women were expected to live up to these masculine ideals by
embodying sôphrosunê and enkrateia and by resisting truphê in their own
way. The most prominent examples of such ideal women in Imperial Greek
literature are the heroines of the Greek romances, those supposedly chaste
young women, uncommonly devoted to the young men who will become
their husbands, female models of Greek moderation who reject the corrupt-
ing influences of barbarian cultures. Recent interpretations of the romances,
though, have focused on the complex moral ambiguities beneath the genre’s
idealizing gloss. Few now would characterize the Greek romances as naı̈ve
love stories; on the contrary, the extant texts all bear artful testimony to
that genre’s ability to represent moral complexity against a background of
ideal models, to incorporate sub-narratives resistant to romantic ideology,

 On Sybaris, see also fr.  Hercher, a–d Domingo-Forasté.

 The Varia historia and Severan culture 
and even to challenge traditional Hellenism. The heroines of romance
especially are complex, ambiguous individuals. Chariton’s Kallirhoe is only
the most famous example of a woman who manipulates chastity as a means
of survival: by marrying two different men she becomes the only heroine
in the surviving romances who does not remain chaste or even sexually
faithful to one man. All of the heroines of the romances, though, to greater
or lesser extents negotiate the boundaries of what is considered decent or
appropriate behavior.
Aelian turns to the subject of female sôphrosunê in the stories of Aspasia
and Atalante, the two longest chapters of the VH. The figures of Aspasia
and Atalante are fascinating in their own right, but Aelian’s ethical por-
traits of these women must also be connected to the perceived relationship
between truphê and the feminine. When truphê is identified in men, it is
interpreted as effeminacy, for the feminine represented sensuousness and
lack of self-control in Greek philosophical thought, as is well known.
The narratives of Aspasia and Atalante therefore offer opportunities for
narrative explorations of characters whose gender is meant to signify a
problematic relationship to sôphrosunê. The category of “woman” poses a
special philosophical challenge for Aelian’s meditation on masculine ethics.
In these two elaborate logoi at least, women are interesting to Aelian because,
like animals, they are good to think with. Much feminist scholarship on
classical literature, especially Athenian drama, has considered how women
function as signs within the semiotic system of Greek thought. Aelian’s
logoi on Aspasia and Atalante also reveal the constructed, semiotic quality
of these women: courtesan and virgin huntress play symbolic roles within
a masculine economy of thought about pleasure and the body. But I
suggest additionally that Aelian’s literary imagination does not pessimisti-
cally foreclose the possibility of female subjectivation. To recognize that
“woman” is a sign is also to acknowledge that “woman” is not a natural
category, but rather something produced by culture. The possibility then
opens up that the semiotic system itself may be manipulated and new signs
produced. Female subjectivation entails, however, the further possibility of

 See among others Zeitlin , Goldhill , Morales , Smith , and Whitmarsh .
 Haynes : –.
 For the evidence in Plato and Aristotle, see Spelman : – and Foucault : –.
 Cf. Lévi-Strauss : , Detienne : –, and Loraux : . On the value of animals for
thinking about gender in Achilles Tatius, see Morales .
 See especially Gould , Foley  and , Zeitlin  and , and Rabinowitz . On
the Greek novel, see Haynes  and Morales .
 See also Brulé .
 The women of the Varia historia
a disruption to the masculine order of things: not every female subject will
be a collaborator within the dominant symbolic system.
The erotic narratives about Aspasia and Atalante proceed like the Greek
novels in part as illustrations of the prescriptive philosophical demands
of sôphrosunê and the rejection of truphê; in this regard they illustrate and
contribute to the social construction of “decent” women. They are, as Pierre
Brulé has described them, reflections “au miroir masculin.” But Aelian’s
narratives also in ways subtle and not so subtle reveal female protagonists
who transcend the constraints of sôphrosunê as it has been imposed by
traditional Greek culture. It is the goal of this chapter to show that in
the two most elaborate narratives of the VH, Aelian showcases Atalante
and Aspasia as powerfully subversive women who transform the moral
framework by which their life and behavior are to be interpreted.

Aspasia of Phokaia
At the beginning of Book , Aelian tells the story of Aspasia of Phokaia,
who is transformed from impoverished Greek virgin to influential concu-
bine at the courts of two Persian brothers. This Aspasia (not to be confused
with the more famous companion of Pericles) was a character from history
with whom Aelian was familiar from the works of Xenophon, Plutarch,
and possibly from Athenaeus, if not others. Aelian’s narrative in three
episodes is by far the longest extant account about this woman. Aspasia of
Phokaia is unlike the hetairai who receive moral censure throughout the
VH. When writing about hetairai, Aelian typically reflects the sentiments
of Socrates, who told Kallisto that she led all of the men devoted to her
on a downward path (VH .). There was, moreover, a long tradition
of wicked women in the East who acquired power and influence over
kings by means of their sexual charisma; one thinks especially of Homer’s
Helen and the wife of Kandaules in Herodotus. Aspasia, however, by
remaining virtuous despite her radical cultural and social transformation,
problematizes female virtue. She is more than just a model Greek woman –
a Mustergriechin, as Bernhardt describes her. The paradoxical nature of

 This formulation is based largely on Butler : –, who builds on the work of de Beauvoir,
Irigaray, Foucault, and Wittig.
 Brulé : .
 X. An. ..; Plu. Art. –, Per. .–; and Ath. . (d). See Neuhaus , Puiggali :
–, and Pervo : –.
 Cf. VH ., ; .; .; .; .–, , and .
 See Pervo : , with references and bibliography.  Bernhardt : .
 Aspasia of Phokaia 
her existence as sexual object and moral creature demands different ways
of thinking about what it means to be a decent woman.
Aelian’s narrative begins with an episode that establishes Aspasia’s special
relationship with the goddess Aphrodite. Aspasia of Phokaia was a girl
raised in poverty by her father alone, since her mother died in childbirth,
though this did not prevent her from being brought up with moderation
and with self-control (σωφρόνως μέντοι καὶ ἐγκρατῶς, VH ., p. ,
lines – Dilts). She was regularly visited by a dream that hinted at her
future: she would live with a man who was fine and noble. But while she
was still a child, a growth (φῦμα, line ) appeared beneath her chin; it
was ugly to look at and distressed both her and her father. To be treated
by a physician was too costly, and Aspasia was grieved that she would
have to live with a permanent disfigurement: “holding a mirror in her lap
and looking at herself in it, she became very upset” (lines –). But her
grief was alleviated by the visitation of another dream. A dove appeared
to her that transformed into a woman, who told her to bid farewell to
physicians and their remedies: she should grind up the withered roses
from the garlands dedicated to Aphrodite and sprinkle them as a powder
upon the disfiguring growth. She did exactly as the dream prescribed,
the growth disappeared, “and Aspasia was again the most beautiful of her
fellow maidens, regaining her beauty from the most beautiful of the gods”
(lines –). There follows a description of her physical beauty, which
concludes with the narrator’s remark that because of her poverty “she was
free of all the meddling and gossip typical of women” and “she added
nothing superfluous or extravagant to her beauty” (p. , lines –).
The narrator’s emphasis here on Aspasia’s poverty as the primary cause of
her behavior and appearance motivates the reader to wonder whether she
would be equally austere under different circumstances.
Fortune intervenes to test Aspasia’s character in the narrative’s second
episode: Aspasia is taken against her will to the court of the Persian satrap
Cyrus, the son of Darius and Parusatis whose attempted rebellion and
defeat by his brother Artaxerxes was made famous in Xenophon’s Anaba-
sis. Aspasia quickly became Cyrus’ favorite concubine, “because of the
simplicity (ἀφέλειαν) of her character, the modesty of her manner, and
because she was beautiful without extravagance” (p. , lines –).
Her intelligence, too, was her ally in claiming Cyrus’ affection, though we
hear little about her intellectual talents in the rest of the narrative. The

 The experimental quality of the narrative is recognized by Campanile : .

 On Aelian’s Aspasia and historical concubines at the Persian court, see Briant : –.
 The women of the Varia historia
narrator describes in detail the scene of Aspasia’s introduction to Cyrus.
Aspasia and three other Greek girls were to be paraded before the satrap
during wine after a banquet. The three other girls, whose hair had been
done and who had been dressed in fine clothing, were all instructed on
how to seduce and flatter a powerful man. Aspasia, however, refused even
to wrap herself in the richly embroidered (ποικίλον, p. , line ) cloak
that was expected of her. Crying aloud, “she called upon all the gods of
Greece and of Freedom, which are the same,” saying that she would rather
die than submit, “since she believed that it was clear and acknowledged
slavery (δουλείαν) to endure on one’s body clothing as well as extravagant
ornamentation that were foreign to one’s custom” (lines –). But Cyrus’
ministers beat her into submission, and when she is brought before Cyrus,
the satrap is delighted by the girl’s stubborn will to resist, calling her the
only girl among them who is “free and uncorrupted” (p. , lines –).
In time Aspasia became more than a concubine: “Cyrus fell in love
with this woman beyond measure, but he was loved in return also by
her, and the intimacy between them advanced to the point that it was
close to equality and did not fall short of the harmony and moderation
(σωφροσύνης) of a Greek marriage” (p. , lines –). The narrator is
silent about how Aspasia’s resistance was worn down and how she grew to
conceive of an erôs for Cyrus. In the Greek romances, by contrast, the onset
of erôs comes instantaneously and at first sight for both the male and female
protagonists. Aelian diverts from the romantic model, though, and the
time that he collapses in the narrative (χρόνῳ δὲ ὕστερον, line ) becomes
a conspicuous lacuna in Aspasia’s ethical life. The notice that their intimacy
approached the morality of a Greek marriage is the narrator’s rhetorical
attempt to eradicate any suspicion that Aspasia has become vulnerable to
the sensuous luxury of the Persian court. When Aspasia remembered her
old dreams, the dove, and what the goddess had prescribed, she set up a
golden statue of Aphrodite accompanied by a dove studded with precious
stones, to which she offered prayers and sacrifices every day. She also sent
gifts to her father and made him rich. But none of this was extravagant or
excessively luxurious: “she lived with moderation (σωφροσύνῃ), as Greek
and Persian women say” (p. , lines –). Aspasia’s indulgence in Persian
wealth is given a moral gloss (i.e. it is Hellenized) by being channeled into
religious and filial devotion.
The following anecdote further conveys the idea that Aspasia’s simple,
modest character remained unchanged in Persia. When Cyrus tried to give

 Pervo : –.

 Aspasia of Phokaia 
her an ornate necklace, she kindly declined the gift on the grounds that it
was more worthy of Cyrus’ mother, Parusatis. Aspasia thus “did the opposite
of what women usually do, for they are terribly fond of jewelry” (p. ,
lines –). When Parusatis received the necklace, she was delighted and
sent gifts to Aspasia in exchange, which Aspasia also declined. As a result
of her behavior in the affair of the necklace, “this woman astonished Cyrus
and indisputably became a source of wonder both on account of the beauty
of her body and still more on account of the nobility of her soul” (p. ,
lines –). The anecdote begs comparison with the earlier scene in which
Aspasia violently refused to wear the richly embroidered garment prior to
being introduced to Cyrus. This time her resistance to wearing extravagant
jewelry is more tactful. She does not cry out to the gods of Greece and
Freedom; she does not pray for death before submitting to slavery. On the
contrary, the scene illustrates that Aspasia’s virtue remains intact only as
a result of the fact that she has negotiated the terms of what it means to
be a virtuous woman. It is not insignificant that Aelian’s narrator carefully
sets the scene as Cyrus approaches Aspasia to give her the necklace: “It was
the middle of the day, and when he found her sleeping, slipping under the
covers and lying down gently beside her, he waited silently and without
moving while she slept. And when she woke and saw Cyrus, she greeted
him with an embrace in the usual way” (p. , lines –). Though she
tactfully declines the necklace, she does so in the most luxurious, sensuous,
and intimate of settings.
In the third and final episode of the narrative, Aspasia becomes the
property of Cyrus’ brother Artaxerxes after Cyrus’ death in the battle of
Cunaxa. Artaxerxes sought her out intentionally because he had heard
about her beauty and her virtue (ἀρετήν, p. , line ) and he is angered
when Aspasia is finally brought before him in chains, which he orders to be
exchanged with expensive jewelry (κόσμον πολυτελῆ, lines –). Aspasia
was resistant, of course, both because of her disposition but also because
she was grieving over the loss of Cyrus. But she was finally compelled to
wear the clothing given to her by the king, whereupon she appeared to be
the most beautiful of women and Artaxerxes immediately became inflamed
with desire. He treated her as the first of his wives and honored her to the
point of excess, confident that he would persuade her to forget Cyrus and
love himself no less: “and he got what he was hoping for, but after a long time
and slowly (ὀψὲ δὲ καὶ βραδέως), for Aspasia’s goodwill towards Cyrus,
which had sunk in deeply (ἐντακεῖσα), had produced in her an affection
that was hard to wash away (δυσέκνιπτον)” (p. , lines –). Aelian here
foregrounds the time required to effect Aspasia’s transformation, and the
 The women of the Varia historia
figurative language vividly conveys Aspasia’s emotional depth as well as the
permanence of her feelings towards Cyrus.
The narrative climaxes with the story of Artaxerxes’ grief over the death
of the eunuch Tiridates, a beautiful youth for whom the king was said
to have intense desire. So great was the king’s grief that no one dared
to approach him. When three days had passed, however, Aspasia put on
mourning clothes (στολὴν πενθικήν, p. , lines –) and stood in tears
with lowered head before the king as he was on his way to the bath. Struck
by her appearance, the king asked why she had come, and she replied that
she had come to console him. He was pleased by the woman’s care for
him (κηδεμονίᾳ, line ) and bid her to await his return in his chamber.
When he returned from the bath, he wrapped Aspasia in the eunuch’s cloak
(τὴν τοῦ εὐνούχου στολὴν, lines –), laying it over the black cloak of
mourning that Aspasia was already wearing. The young man’s garment
accentuated her own beauty and the king demanded that she visit him
dressed in this way (οὕτως ἐσταλμένην, line ) until his grief abated.
The narrative concludes with the notice that of all the king’s wives, sons,
and relatives, Aspasia was the only person who could restore the king, who
wisely yielded and gave in to her care and consolation.
This woman who formerly defined herself according to an abstract
notion of Greek freedom transforms into a substitute for the king’s eunuch,
by Greek standards the most debased of Persian slaves. Aelian’s narrator
focuses not on the wearing of the eunuch’s cloak as an act of servility,
but on Aspasia’s role as caregiver and benefactor for a grieving lover, a
role with which she herself sympathized after the death of Cyrus. Slavery,
in other words, is transmogrified by the narrative into a voluntary act of
charity based ostensibly on love and affection. The scene must be read in
comparison with the earlier scenes of Aspasia’s resistance to wearing either
the richly embroidered dress of a courtesan or gaudy jewelry. In this scene,
all such resistance is apparently gone. The reader wonders if this can be
the same woman who, at the beginning of her Persian life, prayed for
death before she would submit to such an obvious display of slavery. The
narrator insists that Aspasia remains the virtuous woman that she always
was, but at the same time he shows us a radically changed person. In one
subtle move, though, the narrator also reveals that Aspasia’s resistance has
not been altogether eradicated. When Aspasia obeyed the king’s order to
visit him regularly wearing the eunuch’s clothes, she did so “while making
 On the fetishism of Cyrus and Artaxerxes, see Puiggali : –.
 This view persisted into the later Roman period, despite the increasing presence and influence of
eunuchs at the Imperial court. See Tougher : –, –.
 Aspasia of Phokaia 
herself agreeable” (χαριζομένη, line ). This last word illustrates that her
compliance was not automatic or unthinking, emphasizing instead the
ethical work that Aspasia had to perform on herself in order to become an
obedient slave of the king.
Aelian’s story of Aspasia is also religious. Neuhaus described Aphrodite’s
tutelage of Aspasia as the Kern of the whole story, and indeed the narrative
concludes with the telos of Aspasia’s dream that she would one day live with
a man who was fine and noble. The dream is not satisfied in quite the way
that Aspasia anticipated; in one sense there is no man more fine and
noble than the Persian king, but Aspasia’s youthful self, proudly Greek,
would have been horrified at her becoming a Persian concubine. But the
intervention of Aphrodite at the beginning of the narrative is crucial for
understanding Aspasia’s potential for adaptability and change, for it is
from Aphrodite that Aspasia learns about the transformative power of erôs.
The disfiguring growth (phûma) that appeared beneath Aspasia’s chin is an
outward sign of the abiding quality of an essential nature (phusis). Though
it upset her when she looked at herself in the mirror, that phûma, if it had
persisted, would have prevented Aspasia from acquiring a reputation for
beauty, would therefore have prevented her from drawing the attention
of Cyrus’ soldiers, and therefore would have kept Aspasia at home in
Phokaia, a Greek woman to the end. Through Aphrodite, though, Aspasia
is relieved of the handicap of an abiding, essential nature and must come
to terms with learning over time what it means to be a labile creature.
The growth may have vanished overnight, but it took Aspasia far longer to
realize that her Greek nature was illusory and to embrace by degrees new
behaviors and customs. But the narrative also reassures that the willingness
to change in such seemingly radical ways does not preclude the possibility
of being a moral person. To hold unwaveringly that the laying on of a
eunuch’s richly embroidered clothes is the outward sign of slavery is to be
constrained within an inflexible cultural paradigm and to be blind to a
different expression of human affection.
Aspasia demands to be interpreted on her own terms and resists the
dominant ideological frameworks by which decent women have tradition-
ally been interpreted in Greek culture. Leaving aside Aspasia’s seemingly
paradoxical ability to embody sôphrosunê without retaining her virginity,

 Neuhaus : .

 Cf. Puiggali : , who reads Aspasia’s sudden adoption of “une conduite immorale” and her
lack of “consistance psychologique” as indications that Aelian must have followed a different source
than in the first two episodes of the narrative.
 See also Brulé : –.
 The women of the Varia historia
comparison of Aelian’s narrative with Greek romance is again enlighten-
ing. To be sure, the story of Aspasia reflects Aelian’s familiarity with other
narrative patterns, such as those seen in the Life of Aesop, Milesian tales,
early Christian narratives, and even folklore, but the comparison with
romance is particularly helpful for understanding how Aspasia transcends
the traditional paradigm for a decent woman. Despite the fact that the
canonical romances all play (some more self-consciously than others) with
variations on the expected telos, the fact remains that romance is a genre
structured around a narrative (a) of return – homeward, to a place of ori-
gin, where identity and the familiar are secure – and (b) of erôs contained
within heterosexual marriage. Aelian’s story of Aspasia flouts both of these
generic conventions. Aspasia never returns to Phokaia either by sheer force
of will or by the artificial intervention of Aphrodite or Tukhe. Instead, her
journey tends further and further East; in this regard she is like Chariton’s
Kallirhoe, though unlike Kallirhoe, Aspasia lacks a Greek husband to res-
cue her and restore her to her Greek father(land). Aspasia is launched
against her will into an adventure world that bears a striking resemblance
to the central section of romance, wherein the protagonists bounce from
one obstacle or episode to another; unlike for the protagonists of romance,
though, Aspasia’s adventure world remains open-ended, denying the hero-
ine and her readers the promise of return. Aelian’s narrative also departs
from the romantic depiction of marriage as a secure cultural institution;
in the story of Aspasia even marriage itself is subject to the vicissitudes of
fortune. Though it took time to develop, Aspasia’s relationship with Cyrus
came close to a Greek marriage, but this was hardly the telos of her narrative,
as that relationship came to an abrupt end with Cyrus’ death and Aspa-
sia’s transfer as Cyrus’ property into the hands of his brother Artaxerxes.
History aside, in the fictive world that Aelian creates there is no certainty
that Aspasia will remain forever Artaxerxes’ faithful concubine after the
story’s abrupt ending. If the generic conventions of romance provide an
insufficient frame within which to measure Aspasia’s character, the reader
can at least be certain about one thing: whatever her circumstances, Aspasia
will do whatever she must to survive and also to remain a virtuous being.
But does Aelian’s Aspasia have a voice of her own? Is she able to fulfill
the dream of the chorus in Euripides’ Medea and speak outside of the

 Puiggali :  (following the nineteenth-century studies by Chassang and Schmid), Pervo :
–, and Anderson : –.
 Whitmarsh : –.
 For a fuller comparison with Chariton’s Kallirhoe, see Pervo : –.  Plu. Art. .
 Atalante 
male discourse within which her narrative is constructed? It is telling
that Aelian offers no specific examples of Aspasia’s wisdom or counsel at
the court of Cyrus, and equally problematic is the narrator’s remark that
“someone might say that, when she was speaking, he was listening to a
Siren” (εἶπεν ἄν τις, λαλούσης αὐτῆς, ἀκούειν Σειρῆνος, p. , lines –).
The allusion is a commonplace for the seductive beauty of a woman’s voice,
but the implication of danger is inescapable. Aelian’s narrative elaborates
the figure of a woman who transcends sanctioned categories, but it does so
by means of paradox, which is to say by means of manipulating in surprising
ways the standards and terms of female virtue as it has traditionally been
understood. Paradox affords the possibility of representing a woman who
is subversive, but also comprehensible (and therefore containable) in her
subversion. The question might legitimately be raised that this kind of
subversion is not subversive in any meaningful way (how effective are state-
controlled protests against the state?). The Siren-like quality of Aspasia’s
voice, however, is a sign that beyond the necessary comprehensibility of her
paradoxical representation within narrative there resides a subjectivity that
is disruptive, if not destructive of men’s understanding of the world. In this
way the virtuous concubine, even when she exists as an object of pleasure
for men, is a potentially dangerous subject. For elaborating the even more
dangerous fantasy of a woman’s complete autonomy and freedom, Aelian
turns at the beginning of Book  from history to myth.

Atalante
Animals and the feminine intersect in Aelian’s story of Atalante. Atalante
was an unwanted child. Her father Iasion exposed her on the grounds
that “he was in need not of daughters, but of males” (VH ., p. ,
lines – Dilts). The man to whom Iasion entrusted the baby did not
kill her, but left her in the dense woods of Mount Parthenion beside a
spring where a cave had been formed in the rocks. Fortune arranged it so
that a bear whose cubs had been killed by hunters discovered the baby;
then “by some divine guidance” (line ), the bear took pleasure in the
baby and suckled it. The same hunters who had killed the bear’s cubs kept
an eye on the animal and eventually stole the baby away from the bear
and gave her the name Atalante. The girl grew up in the mountains, and
when she became a young woman, “she had a desire for virginity and fled
intercourse with men and longed for solitude” (ἤρα παρθενίας καὶ τὰς

 E. Med. –.
 The women of the Varia historia
τῶν ἀνδρῶν ὁμιλίας ἔφευγε καὶ ἐρημίαν ἐπόθει, lines –), retreating to
her lofty mountain hideaway in Arcadia, which the narrator describes in
vivid detail. The setting “indicated the most respectable and at the same
time chaste dwelling place of a virgin” (σεμνότατόν τε ἅμα καὶ σώφρονα
παρθενῶνα ἐδείκνυεν, p. , lines –). I will say more about Aelian’s
description of the cave below.
Atalante slept on the skins of animals she hunted, her food was their
meat, and she drank water. She wore simple clothing in the style of Artemis,
whom she said she emulated also “in wishing to be a virgin through to the
end” (ἐν τῷ παρθένος εἶναι διὰ τέλους ἐθέλειν, p. , line ). She was very
fast and could outrun any animal or man who had designs on her, and
men did fall in love with her on account of her exceptional beauty. After
a second vivid description, this time of Atalante’s physical appearance, the
narrator concludes the logos with a dynamic account of the midnight attack
on the virgin by the two centaurs Hulaios and Rhoikos. They come reveling
with torches and garlands, “wicked suitors who with wanton violence and
mad frenzy were paying the full price for their intended bride before the
marriage” (κακοὶ μνηστῆρες, σὺν ὕβρει καὶ οἴστρῳ τὰ ἕδνα τῶν γάμων
προεκτελοῦντες, p. , lines –). Their plot did not escape Atalante’s
notice, and when she saw the half-human, half-animal revelers advancing,
she knew who they were, and fearlessly fired off two arrows, killing both.
The story ends abruptly with the narrator’s remark: “so much for Atalante,
the daughter of Iasion” (ὑπὲρ μὲν τῆς ᾿Ιασίωνος ᾿Αταλάντης τοσαῦτα,
p. , lines –).
The story of Atalante stands out in Aelian’s collection. Exceeded in
length only by the story of Aspasia, the narrative offers a compelling
account of Atalante’s early life in three ekphraseis that describe her mountain
dwelling, her physical beauty, and her violent defense of her chastity. The
late thirteenth-century Byzantine scribe who excerpted portions of the VH
in the codex now known as Vaticanus graecus  (Φ) thought the story
so remarkable that he even removed it from its traditional place (.) and
repositioned it as the final passage, to serve as a kind of epilogue to his
copy of the collection. The narrative celebrates Atalante as a model of
Stoic virtues: she remains committed to chastity and virginity, she leads a
simple lifestyle and shuns the superfluous vanities of urban life, and she
lives in harmony with nature. All of these are ideals that can be identified
throughout Aelian’s earlier works.

 For the death of the centaurs, see also Call. Dian. – and Apollod. .–.
 Dilts : .
 Atalante 
Aelian developed his narrative of Atalante from traditional material, but
we cannot be certain about who precisely Aelian’s sources were. Though
there were two main traditions about Atalante (one Arcadian, one Boeo-
tian), both traditions likely point back to a single Artemis-type figure.
Aelian’s emphasis on Atalante as a paradigm of chastity and austere erotic
morality is all the more apparent when one considers the narratives that
he chose not to include in this logos. We hear nothing, for example, about
Atalante’s participation in the hunt for the Calydonian boar, nor that she
was one of the crew aboard the Argo. Aelian does not even acknowledge
the famous story of Atalante’s foot race. At some later time, after she found
her parents, her father urged her to marry, and so she challenged her suitors
to a foot race: those whom she defeated she punished with death and only
the man who bested her could claim her as a bride. Eventually, after many
suitors had died, Melanion fell in love with Atalante, but during his own
foot race with her, he distracted her by throwing in her way some golden
apples, a gift from Aphrodite. Because Atalante reached down to pick up
the apples she lost the race and became the wife of Melanion. She later
gave birth to Parthenopaios, one of the seven who marched against Thebes.
A further story claims that once, during a hunt, Atalante and Melanion
came across a temple of Zeus; after having sex in the temple they were both
transformed into lions.
All this Aelian could have included in his logos, but he did not. Jettisoning
the episodes of Atalante’s participation in the Calydonian boar hunt and the
expedition of the Argonauts erases her involvement with the world of male
heroes. By refusing to look forward to Atalante’s defeat by and marriage to
Melanion, Aelian’s version of the story suggests that the huntress’ virginity
is a natural state to be defended. Aelian’s Atalante retains her maidenhood
right through to the end, just as she wished, dwelling in her most respectable
and chaste parthenôn, and therefore suspended as a model of virginity and
perfect sôphrosunê.
But something is wrong with this picture. The narrator’s commentary
on his ekphraseis reveals that he is self-consciously aware of the artificiality,
the constructedness of an idealized Atalante who is made to seem like
an extension of her natural surroundings. Before describing Atalante’s
 Rose : .
 Call. Dian. –; Ov. Met. .–; Hyg. Fab. –; Apollod. .–,  (cf. A.R.
.–); Philostr.Jun. Im. . For the depiction of Atalante as a liminal figure and as a subver-
sive/transgressive outsider on classical vases, see Barringer .
 In accounts by Euripides and Ovid, this successful suitor was Hippomenes, not Melanion. For
the story of the footrace and the metamorphosis, see Apollod. .–; Hyg. Fab. ; Ov. Met.
.–; and Nonn. D. .– and .–. On Parthenopaios, see Hyg. Fab. , .
 The women of the Varia historia
dwelling, the narrator interjects, “For what harm does it do us also to hear
about Atalante’s cave, like Calypso’s cave in Homer?” (τί γὰρ ἡμᾶς λυπεῖ
καὶ ἄντρον ᾿Αταλάντης ἀκοῦσαι, ὡς τὸ τῆς Καλυψοῦς τὸ ἐν ῾Ομήρῳ; p. ,
lines –). The same defensiveness returns in the narrator’s description of
Atalante’s physical beauty: “And come, let us describe also what she looked
like, if there’s no harm in it. And there is no harm, since from this, too,
there would come additional experience and skill with words” (φέρε δὲ καὶ
τὸ εἶδος αὐτῆς, εἴ τι μὴ λυπεῖ, διαγράψωμεν· λυπεῖ δὲ οὐδέν, ἐπεὶ καὶ ἐκ
τούτων προσγένοιτ’ ἂν λόγων τε ἐμπειρία καὶ τέχνη, p. , lines –).
The literary value of ekphrasis trumps the possibility of harm. But the
rhetorical questions could only be asked if the possibility of harm were
not incomprehensible or irrational. Even to ask the question “what harm is
there?” (twice) implies that harm is indeed lurking just out of sight. Aelian’s
narrator is aware that listening to words that paint beautiful images in the
mind can be a dangerous activity, and so he must dispel the fear that his
ekphrasis of Atalante is particularly dangerous.
I use the term ekphrasis here not in the sense of a description of a
work of art (a modern meaning of the ancient term), but as it was
understood by teachers and practitioners of rhetoric in antiquity. For writers
like Aelian, ekphrasis was any description that conjured a vivid mental
picture in the mind of its reader or audience. The power of ekphrasis
lay in its ability to make vividly apparent that which was absent, and
that vividness (enargeia) was achieved by the formation of images in the
mind (phantasiai). Given the phantasmatic nature of this experience, it is
understandable why ekphrasis, an ostensibly benign literary practice, might
generate philosophical unease. Seneca the Elder, for example, expresses
anxiety about orators whose dynamic performances of ekphrasis make it
seem as if they have gone mad, unable to distinguish between reality and the
mental images they conjure. But Aelian’s narrator is concerned less with
the instability of his own mental state than with the potential harm that
his ekphraseis may inflict on his audience. It is significant that he defends
the second ekphrasis as providing “experience and skill with words”: the
narrator is concerned with the developing minds of his audience, and the
claim that his ekphraseis have a propaideutic value shrouds the anxiety that

 There is no such trepidation in Aelian’s ekphrasis of Aspasia or of the Vale of Tempe (VH .), in
which he was following Theopompus (Theon, Prog. .– Patillon) and Dio of Prusa (Synesius,
Dio , lines – Terzaghi). See Anderson : –, Johnson : , and Campanile :
.
 Webb : –.  Ibid. –. See also Anderson : – and Elsner .
 Dross – and Webb : .
 Atalante 
the seductive phantasiai conjured by his words might have too powerful
an effect. The sophist-narrator of Philostratus’ Eikones similarly offsets the
deluded sensuousness of viewing and listening with the conceit that his
performance is an exercise in rhetorical training. As the narrator guides a
young boy and a crowd of besotted meirakia along a luxurious portico in
a seaside villa, a site of truphê, he interprets for them a series of paintings
set in the walls (Im. pr. –). Indulging in the sensuous pleasures of the
experience is thus channeled into a beneficial paideia. For Aelian and
Philostratus alike, reinscribing ekphrasis as educational is an attempt to
neutralize the potential danger posed by its illusory sensuousness.
The physical description of Atalante is prefaced by the notice that her
beauty was so powerful that men fell in love with her not only by sight,
but alsο merely from what was said about her (ἐκ φήμης, p. , lines –).
Aelian’s remark should be taken as a warning. Atalante’s ability (or curse)
to attract lovers based merely on her reputation recalls two such instances
in Achilles Tatius’ Leukippe and Kleitophon. Kallisthenes and Thersandros
both fall in love with the heroine of the novel when they hear about
her beauty and without ever having seen her with their own eyes. The
former becomes a “lover from hearing” (ἐξ ἀκοῆς ἐραστής, ..) and
the latter, after his slave describes Leukippe, is “filled with an apparition
(φαντάσματος) as if of beauty” (..). The narrator Kleitophon derides
such erotic vulnerability to words, “for so great is the wanton violence in
those who lack self-control that even by their ears do they lapse luxuriously
(τρυφᾶν) into desire and because of words they suffer what wounded eyes
minister to the soul” (..). Care must be taken regarding the seductive
power of women who are made to exist only as phantasiai in the mind.
Atalante’s cave could indeed turn out to be a Calypso’s cave, transforming
the reader into an Odysseus who has given himself over to sensuous pleasure
and lost his way. By signaling the harm latent in his ekphrasis of Atalante,
Aelian’s narrator reminds his audience of the illusory quality of the young
woman his words are about to conjure.
Implicating his audience in erotic fantasizing in this way, Aelian’s nar-
rator then shows that the fantasy of Atalante is a particularly destructive
one, for the intensity of her beauty is matched by her ability to inspire fear
(φοβεῖν, p. , line ):

 See also Philostr.Jun. Im. Pr. . On the Eikones of the Philostrati, see Webb : –, Dubel
, and Newby .
 Morales : – and Webb : .
 For the ekphrasis of the cave as a mise en abyme, see Campanile : .
 The women of the Varia historia
οὐδεὶς ἂν ἰδὼν αὐτὴν ἠράσθη ῥᾴθυμος ἄνθρωπος, ἀλλ’ οὐδ’ ἂν ἐτόλμησεν
ἀντιβλέπειν τὴν ἀρχήν· τοσαύτη μετὰ τῆς ὥρας κατέλαμπεν αἴγλη τοὺς
ὁρῶντας. δεινὴ δὲ ἦν ἐντυχεῖν τά τε ἄλλα καὶ τῷ σπανίῳ. οὐ γὰρ ἂν
αὐτήν τις εὐκόλως εἶδεν· ἀλλ’ ἀδοκήτως καὶ ἀπροόπτως ἐπεφάνη διώκ
ουσα θηρίον ἢ ἀμυνομένη τινά, ὥσπερ ἀστὴρ διᾴττουσα, εἶτα ἀπέκρυπτεν
αὑτὴν διαθέουσα ἢ δρυμὸν ἢ λόχμην ἤ τι ἄλλο τῶν ἐν ὄρει δάσος. (p. ,
line –p. , line )
No passionless man would fall in love upon seeing her. On the contrary, he
wouldn’t even dare to look upon her to begin with, so great the radiance
combined with beauty that shone upon those who saw her. And she was
fearsome to meet, especially for the rarity of doing so. For no one would
catch sight of her easily, but unexpectedly and unforeseen she appeared,
chasing a wild beast or defending herself against one, shooting like a star,
then she would hide herself running into a copse or thicket or some other
cover in mountainous places.
Atalante’s appearance before the eyes of men was rare and fleeting; no
sooner was she seen than she camouflaged herself amid the foliage of her
natural surroundings. Her beauty, whether perceived through the eyes or
fantasized about from what people say (phêmê), inflames men to become
her lover, and yet she can never be seized. A chaste huntress herself, she
performs her role only in the active voice, refusing to become the hunted.
The perfect virgin, the model of a naturalized sôphrosunê, turns out to be
impossible to contain. Intensely desired, she paradoxically will never satisfy
men’s desire for her. The narrator’s self-consciously ekphrastic mode of
depiction further underlines that it is only through the power of ekphrasis
that this woman will ever be contained and brought before the eyes of
men. The perfect virgin, the ultimate phantasia within a masculine ethics
of desire and the body, is also a projection of masculine fear.
Aelian’s logos about Atalante naturalizes the social ideal of female chastity,
but that same process of making female chastity seem natural also para-
doxically reveals it to be a product of culture. Aelian concludes the logos
abruptly with a description of Atalante’s defensive killing of the lustful cen-
taurs, aborting her narrative before its traditional telos and thus denying
readers the satisfaction of the foot race, the golden apples, and Melanion’s
conquest. Aelian’s Atalante, enacting her own will to remain a virgin right
through to the end (παρθένος εἶναι διὰ τέλους ἐθέλειν, p. , line ), refuses
to be a wife or mother and therefore disrupts the generative processes of

 Brulé : .

 For the contemporary debate about the benefits and disadvantages of virginity, see Sor. Gunaikeia
.. Cf. also the story of Rhodopis at Ach.Tat. ..
 Conclusion 
nature as it has been constructed by men. In his ekphrasis of Atalante,
Aelian leaves suspended in the minds of his readers the image of a woman
who lives on her own terms, out of the reach of men.

Conclusion
In the two longest chapters of the VH Aelian takes up the stories of two
women who structure their ethical lives around the rejection of truphê in
favor of austerity and simplicity. In this regard at least they serve as models
of female decency. But Aelian’s depiction of these women also reveals
complexities in their characters that challenge the paradigm of morality as
it has traditionally been constructed by men.
Aspasia of Phokaia at first, like a good Greek woman, resists the foreign
luxury of Persian life, but after being violently compelled to parade herself
like a hetaira before Cyrus the Younger, she learns gradually to negotiate for
herself a style of moderation between Greek austerity and Persian excess.
Guided by Aphrodite and understanding the transformative power of erôs,
Aspasia by the end of the narrative voluntarily dons the cloak of a eunuch
for the grieving Persian king; so altered, though, is the conceptual schema
of Aspasia’s life that the narrative pleads for the act to be interpreted not
as an expression of servility but as one of sympathetic human affection.
It may be said that Aelian’s Aspasia projects the male fantasy of a woman
who finally learns and accepts her status as a sexual object. But Aspasia’s
subtly shifting morality also reveals a subjectivity that has the potential of
destabilizing masculine ethics.
Aelian’s Atalante is more radically other, rejecting completely the world
of men and enacting her own will to resist the confining structures of male
power. Atalante seems in her dedication to chastity and simple living to act
as a model for traditional Greek morality, but the self-consciously ekphras-
tic mode with which Aelian depicts Atalante reveals the artifice required
to conjure this fantasy of female virtue. She is desired by anyone lucky
enough to glimpse her, but she can never be possessed. Patriarchy dictates
that a woman must preserve her virginity so that her body will remain pure
for her husband. Atalante, however, manipulates that masculine ideal for
women as the means of her own independence. Atalante’s utter rejection of
the erotic impulse and her commitment to remain a virgin right through to
the end disrupt the generative narrative that men have written for women:
Aelian’s Atalante will never be a wife or mother.
Stamm has argued that the VH was written as a collection of models
for advanced students of rhetoric, while Campanile sees the work as light
 The women of the Varia historia
entertainment for a public who wanted to read about art, history, and
philosophy in a style that was not too demanding. The VH certainly
conveys an interest in paideia and in the educative value of its content,
and though I remain open to the possibility that Aelian’s work was used
in rhetorical training, the chapters on Aspasia and Atalante at least are far
more than mere school exercises. Likewise, the reading public imagined
by Campanile may have enjoyed these narratives as nothing more than
charming anecdotes, but the above interpretations show that these nar-
ratives may also have appealed to a readership willing to think critically
about the received morality of the classical tradition. Aelian’s Aspasia and
Atalante are not two-dimensional models of traditional feminine virtues;
on the contrary, they are provocative figures that compel careful readers
to rethink the moral criteria by which both male and female subjects are
constructed in Roman Imperial life.

 Stamm : – and Campanile : .

 Conclusion
“Nature produces animals with many voices and many
sounds, you might say . . . ” 

Aelian is characterized by a series of paradoxes. He was Roman and admired

for his commitment to Roman character, yet within the NA he distances
himself from Roman culture, coming out as a Roman only in the pages
of the VH, and there always with qualification. Though Aelian’s choice to
cite no Latin authors in the NA could be based on his adoption of “pure”
Greek as his literary medium – why cite a Latin writer when “better” Greek
writers are available? – that choice nevertheless increases the distance that he
places between himself and Roman culture. Furthermore, he never married
and raised a family as a good Roman man should. His literary aesthetic
was mainstream, and yet he taps into the anxieties that always attended
poikilia: concerns that his varied style was a sign of effeminacy and a lack
of intellectual rigor. He must be considered a Stoic in the general sense,
but his work either questions or abandons some central tenets of Stoic
doctrine, namely the emphasis on philosophical dialectic, the rejection of
reason in the approach to natural phenomena, and the belief that non-
human animals lack the capacity for reason. He was a sophist, but he
abandoned a career of declamation for one of private study and writing.
He was interested in exploring the far reaches of the world, but only
insofar as that world was mediated through books: he never left Italy, nor
set foot on a boat. He wields a voice of strongly conservative morality,
but the open quality of his work embraces alternative moral sensibilities:
the contradictions of the library are sites for continually re-reading nature
amid an ever-shifting series of frames, revealing the constructed quality of
any single moral or ideological framework. The possibility then arises that,
if the framework is culturally constructed, then it may be changed.
Aelian voices this relativistic position early in the NA, when he says in the
preface that “not everything to everyone is beautiful, nor to everyone does
everything seem worthy of study.” The allusion to the Platonic Hippias

 NA ..


 “Animals with many voices and many sounds”
Major figures Aelian as a new Socrates, whose iconoclastic persona suits
the paradoxical Aelian in many ways. But evoking Socrates also raises the
specter of a philosophical tradition for which Aelian’s literary project would
have generated derision or outrage. Aelian’s preface and epilogue to the NA
are therefore tinged with defensiveness about his choices and his work,
and he feels he must respond to criticisms that the objects of his study
are unworthy of his time and even that he has approached them in a way
unbecoming of an ordered mind. But precisely these two aspects of the
NA – its focus on animals and its stylistic poikilia – are what facilitate
Aelian’s most penetrating cultural critiques.
There was, of course, a long tradition of writing about animals in Greek
literature, a tradition that extends back to the animal similes of the Homeric
epics. But Aelian conceives of writing about animals in the way that he
does as a provocative contrast to the treatment of animals in a Roman
context in the third century ce. The epilogue to the NA is obsessed with
hunting. Aelian imagines his thought as “tracking down” (ἀνίχνευσε) his
scholarly prey as if it were a quarry. Defending the work’s compositional
structure, he says that by means of variety he was “hunting” (θηρῶν) for
an enticement to reading. And this scholarly, literary hunting he contrasts
with catching an animal’s scent and laying hands upon an animal’s limbs –
there’s nothing noble in that kind of hunt, he says.
τί πρὸς ταῦτα Κέφαλοί τε καὶ ῾Ιππόλυτοι καὶ εἴ τις ἐν ὄρεσιν ἀγρίοις
θηρία μετελθεῖν δεινὸς ἕτερος ἢ αὖ πάλιν τῶν ἐν ὑδροθηρίᾳ οἶδεν, ὡς ἢ
Μητρόδωρος ὁ Βυζάντιος ἢ Λεωνίδης ὁ τούτου παῖς ἢ Δημόστρατος ἢ
ἄλλοι τινὲς θηραταὶ ἰχθύων οἱ δεινότατοι, πολλοὶ ναὶ μὰ Δία; καὶ γραφικοὶ
δὲ ἄνδρες, μέγα αὐτοὺς φρονεῖν ἀνέπειθεν ἢ ἵππος γραφεὶς κάλλιστα, ὡς
᾿Αγλαοφῶντα, ἢ νεβρός, ὡς ᾿Απελλῆν, ἢ πλασθὲν βοΐδιον, ὡς Μύρωνα, ἢ
ἄλλο τι. (NA ep., p. , lines –)
What compared with this are the Kephaloses and Hippolutoses and whoever
else is skilled at going after beasts in the wild hillsides, or moreover is cunning
at fishing, like Metrodoros of Byzantion, or his son Leonidas, or Demostratos
or some other fishermen who are most skilled, many for sure, by Zeus? And
artists too, what was it convinced them to think they were so great? A very
beautifully painted horse in the case of Aglaophon, or a fawn in the case of
Apelles, or a sculpted calf, in the case of Muron, or something else.
The mythological references are motivated: Kephalos and Hippolutos were
both famous hunters whose passion for the sport ended in their own
misfortune or destruction. But in the second string of references, Aelian
 On Kephalos, see Pherecyd. fr.  (FGrH), Ov. Met. .–, Apollod. ., and Hyg. Fab. ;
on Hippolytos, see E. Hipp. –.
 “Animals with many voices and many sounds” 
takes issue not just with the activity of hunting itself, but also with those
who write hunting literature: Metrodoros of Byzantion, his son Leonidas,
and the Roman senator from Greece Demostratos all wrote manuals on
fishing. Aelian’s book, on the other hand, does not teach hunting or
fishing, though Aelian certainly used those three writers as sources. Nor is
his book merely mimetic: the classical painters Aglaophon and Apelles and
the sculptor Muron were only capable of producing lifeless representations.
The NA strives for something more dynamic: to display the character,
forms, wisdom, shrewdness, justice, prudence, courage, affection, and piety
of animals – all virtues associated more with humans than with animals.
But when humans are compared with their animal counterparts, humans
are found lacking, and Aelian says that he grieves to celebrate the piety of
animals and to censure the impiety of humans. The obsession with hunting
necessarily evokes the animal spectacles and the staged hunts (venationes)
of the Roman arena. But Aelian’s moralizing animal narratives imply an
interrogation of that central institution of Roman public life. Extracting
animals, the most abject creatures of the arena, from the scene of death,
Aelian finds in them and brings to light (ὑπ’ αὐγὰς ἄγει) qualities that are
unsettlingly human. Animals living in harmony with nature are not just
positive foils for wicked human beings. Humanizing animals as Aelian does,
he challenges readers to face the suffering inflicted upon abject creatures,
whether they are caught in the mountains or in the sea or slain in the arena.
Aelian’s moral emphasis, dissolving the “firm” boundary between human
and animal, interrogates other categories, too – slave, barbarian, woman –
and ultimately asks what qualities will finally rescue a being from the
arena.
In the eliciting of pity for the suffering of non-human animals, then,
the NA has some kinship with the Oppianic Halieutika and Kunêgetika,
for while those texts purport to teach hunting and fishing, their elaborate
similes assimilate animal suffering to human suffering and provoke in
readers a keen awareness of the tragic effects of their violent sport of
choice. But whereas the Oppianic poems speak directly to imperial power,
Aelian explicitly frames his text as a turning away not just from imperial
power but also from the ambitious crowds who swarm around the center
of political authority, those “whetted for honors and influence.” This is
not to say that Aelian is not interested in imperial politics or in the figure
of the emperor himself. On the contrary, Aelian has much to say about

 See Ath. c and Wellmann .

 Leonidas: NA ., ., ., and .; Demostratos: NA ., ., ., ..
 “Animals with many voices and many sounds”
kingship, about political philosophy, and he has a shrewd understanding of
the role that animals play in the symbolic vocabulary of power. But Aelian
also knows that even when they are surrounded by wise men, kings will do
what they want. Eagles tread their own lofty course through the sky, and
they pay no mind to the cackling of crows below. And so Aelian chooses
not to speak to kings, addressing his moralizing narratives instead only to
those whom he might not regard as “worthless judges” (πονηροῖς κριταῖς).
The supreme authority for Aelian is nature itself, φύσις ἀπόρρητος, a
divine force in the cosmos that is unspeakable, mysterious. Expressions of
the divine in the NA are manifold, but alongside gods like Zeus and Apollo,
Aelian is especially interested in the power of the sun, Helios in Greek,
but exerting its celestial influence upon all the nations of the world. Aelian
does not mention the cult of Emesa explicitly, but the pervasiveness of the
sun god in the NA must be connected at least in part to the popularity
of the solar cult resulting from Julia Domna’s family ties to the priests
of Elagabal. Imperial politics aside, Aelian’s reverence for Helios was also
part of his universalizing literary project. A divine figure recognized by
all and therefore transcending his particular local identities, Helios is the
perfect god for a text that absorbs the animal lore from a variety of cultural
traditions within the all-embracing medium of Hellenism. The power of
Helios blazed forth from the exotic eastern stone for Herakleı̈s, a widow of
Tarentum in Italy; in Egypt, the sun is symbolized by phoenix, hawk, and
bull, elephants instinctively worship the solar deity, and the dwelling place
of Helios is the heavenly lion; and among the Brahmins in India, Helios
who looks upon all things (τὸν πάντ’ ἐφορῶντα ῞Ηλιον) recognized the
piety of a boy and granted him a long life in the form of a hoopoe. There is
a deep connection between Aelian’s reverence for Helios and the moralizing
orientation of the text. The sun god was a globalizing divinity for Aelian,
generative of all life, and Aelian envisions himself as the one moralizing
writer worthy of admiration (θαυμάσαι ἄξιος) because he brings to light
(ὑπ’ αὐγὰς ἄγει), that is, restores to Helios the virtues residing in animals
and lacking in humans.
But even while Aelian posits the divinely sanctioned superiority of his
own moral position, the structural variety of the NA suggests a multiplicity
wherein the stridently moral voice of “Aelian” the author is revealed to be
the expression of only one culturally specific ideological framework. Built
into the NA, then, is the potentiality for ideological transformation, even
of the voice that apparently authorized the text. Rejecting an overarching

 NA ., ., ., ., ., ., and ..  NA ep., p., lines –.
 “Animals with many voices and many sounds” 
linear narrative and a single, master discourse, the poikilia of the NA is not
just the flowering meadow or garland described by Aelian. It is also the
polyphony of nature, its roaring, mooing, and whinnying, its braying and
bleating and snarling, its grunts, whistles, gnashing, singing, melody, and
lisping. It is the polychromatic feathering of exotic birds by the Ganges. It
is the vibrant dappling upon the helical surface of a mollusk’s calcareous
shell at the bottom of the sea. It is the burrowing of subterranean creatures.
And though it speaks in a polished Greek acquired from an urban life
at the “center” of the Roman Empire, the NA is also the utterance of
Egyptians, Ethiopians, Indians, Scythians, and Syrians. The poikilia of
Aelian’s miscellany translates the cacophony of the world into a beautiful
sound, kalliphônia. The many-voicedness of the collection seems to be in
tension with the assertive morality that divides the world between Greeks
and barbarians, masters and slaves, men and women, male and female,
chastity and perversion, rational human and irrational beast. But it would
be a mistake to take Aelian’s moralizing voice over and above the collection’s
more centrifugal tendencies, as the text itself breaks down those binary
oppositions. Aelian’s moralizing is a figural gesture, a sign of his shame at
the world and of his own shame at being human. But it is that very sense
of shame that separates him from his world and allows him to recede from
the crowd of declaiming sophists, to become something other, a writer of
animal tales. As such, Aelian’s moralizing should be understood not as
an instrument of power, but as an expression of disavowal and longing
for a transformation of the world. It is left to his readers to find their
own ways into the warren, to exploit contradictions, and to experience the
metamorphosis that the NA invites.

 Cf. Lawlor : .

 Appendix
Reconstructing Aelian’s Katêgoria tou gunnidos

Though the text of the Katêgoria tou gunnidos is generally believed to be

lost, certain fragments from the Souda on a “Syrian hetaira” or “Syrian
mime” and others known to be by Aelian, if they are not from the lost
oration itself, may at least be helpful in reconstructing Aelian’s diatribe
against Elagabalus. I print first the fragments that Hercher collected under
the title “De mima Syra,” fr.  Hercher, fr. a–e Domingo-Forasté:
. ἄνθος προσώπῳ ἐπιφυόμενον, οἷον οὐδὲ εἷς λειμὼν νοτερός τε καὶ
ἁβρὸς καὶ εὐθαλὴς τεκεῖν ὑπὸ δρόσῳ ἐαρινῇ οἶδεν, ἐρύθημά τε ὡραῖον
καὶ μειδίαμα ἥδιστον. (Souda ε- )
A flower blossoming upon the countenance, such as not even one
meadow, moist, luxurious, and in bloom, can produce with the dew
of spring, and a beautiful blush and the sweetest smile.
. γύναιον ἐκ Συρίας καθημαξευμένον ὑπὸ παντὸς τοῦ προσιόντος·
ἑταίρα γὰρ ἦν ἐμφανὴς καὶ τῶν ἐν τοῖς μίμοις δι’ ἀκολασίαν περιπα-
θεστέρα, τοῖς τε φαινομένοις ἐς τὴν κοινὴν ὄψιν σχήμασιν ἐκκαλουμένη
τοὺς ὁρῶντας ἐς τὰ πάθη τοῦ σώματος, καὶ κατατείνουσα τὸν δῆμον
καὶ ὅσον μετὰ τοῦ δήμου πρὸς συώδη τινὰ καὶ μανικὴν ἀσέλγειαν.
(Souda κ- )
A womanish thing from Syria well ridden by everyone who approached.
For she was known to be a courtesan and more passionate than those in
the mimes on account of her incontinence, and by means of posturing
that was on display for all to see, enticing those who saw her to
experiences of the body, and drawing the people, and whatever was
with the people, down toward a swinish and mad licentiousness.
. σύνοδοί τινες ἐς αὐτῆς ἐγίνοντο καὶ συμφοιτήσεις ἀκολάστων ἀνδρῶν
καὶ γυναικῶν ἀσελγῶν καὶ μειρακίων ἐξώλη βίον προῃρημένων.
(Souda ε- )
There were certain gatherings at her house and comings together of
undisciplined men and licentious women and teenagers who had cho-
sen a ruined life.

 Appendix: the Katêgoria tou gunnidos 
. κρίσεως δ’ ὡς ἐν ἀκολάστοις εὐθείας οὐ διήμαρτε περὶ τὴν αἵρεσιν
τῆς μιμάδος· σὺν κάλλει γὰρ λαμπρῷ τοῦ σώματος ποικίλως ἤσκητο
τὴν εὐαπάτητον παιδείαν. (Souda κ- )
And he/she did not fail in proper judgment – so far as one can speak
of proper judgment among the incontinent – concerning the choice
of the mime, for with the radiant beauty of her body she practiced a
curriculum of deception.
. ὑγρῶς γὰρ κραδαινομένη καὶ τοῖς ποσὶ χαμαιτυπής, εὔστολος
γινομένη, ἐνίκα πάντας τοὺς τῶν θαυματοποιῶν ἐξηγουμένους·
φωνήν τε ἔχουσα ἡδεῖαν καὶ ταύτην μετὰ τέχνης ἀφιεῖσα οὐδενὸς
τῶν ἐπ’ ᾄσμασι θαυμαζομένων ἐκρίθη δευτέρα. ἅτε δὴ οὐκ ἄπειρος
ἐρωτικῆς περιεργίας, ἀκκιζομένη σὺν καιρῷ καὶ πρὸς ζηλοτυπίαν
εὐφυῶς ἄγουσα τὸν ἄνδρα, ἑαυτῇ μὲν πλοῦτον οὐκ εὐκαταφρόνητον
οἶσεν, ἐκεῖνον δὲ κατὰ βαιὸν τηκόμενον τῷ ἔρωτι ἀπήλλαξε τῶν τῇδε.
(Souda υ- )
For quivering fluidly and beating the ground with her feet, being
well dressed, she defeated all the leading acrobats. And possessing a
sweet voice and using it skillfully, she was judged second to none of
those admired for singing. Indeed, since she was not inexperienced
in erotic sophistication, affecting indifference at the right time and
cleverly driving the man towards jealousy, she brought herself not
inconsiderable wealth, but him, wasting away little by little with desire,
she set free from his present state.
Fragment  on its own provides nothing decisive, and it may not even
be part of the same text as fragments –. The imagery of the flowering
meadow, however, typical of Aelian’s aesthetic poikilia, is exactly how Aelian
would have evoked the emperor’s youthful beauty (Hdn. ..).
Fragment  seems likely to have actually belonged to the Katêgoria. The
behavior of this “womanish thing (γύναιον) from Syria,” who debased
the people to a “swinish and mad licentiousness (ἀσέλγειαν),” fits Aelian’s
description of the womanish tyrant (γύννις) who “shamed Roman affairs
with his total licentiousness (ἀσελγείᾳ).” Granted, a γύναιον (“a womanish
thing”) is not the same thing as a γύννις (“a womanish man”), but I
posit that in the Katêgoria Aelian would have used a number of different
labels for the emperor, probably even modulating grammatical gender –
masculine, feminine, and neuter – to convey the instability of Elagabalus’
gender presentations. Not only did the emperor perform and identify
with feminine roles (wife, mistress, queen, D.C. ..), but he also
apparently sought to alter his physical sex (D.C. ..). Dio also tells
of how Elagabalus would wander the streets of Rome at night wearing a
 Appendix: the Katêgoria tou gunnidos
woman’s clothes and wig and visit taverns and brothels, where “driving
out the courtesans, he would become the prostitute himself” (τὰς ἑταίρας
ἐξελαύνων ἐπορνεύετο, D.C. ..); eventually he even transformed the
imperial palace itself into a brothel. The dangerous erotic enticement of
the movements of the courtesan’s body in the fragment also fits with
contemporary descriptions of Elagabalus’ ecstatic ritual dancing in public
for the sun god and the astonished reaction of his Roman onlookers (Hdn.
..–; D.C .., .).
Fragment , speaking of the “gatherings” (σύνοδοι) and “comings
together” (συμφοιτήσεις) at the house of the gunaion, evokes the rumors
of licentious sexual activity that took place in the palace. The sexual innu-
endo in the fragment is clear: the words σύνοδος and συμφοίτησις are
both euphemisms for sexual intercourse, and why else would incontinent
men, licentious women, and ruined teenagers assemble beneath the roof
of this gunaion? The fragment finds its parallel in Dio, who mentions the
many women and men conducted to the palace by the emperor’s agents
for his personal pleasure (D.C. ..). There is a significant difference:
the people in the fragment eagerly flock to the residence of the gunaion
of their own accord, while the need for intermediaries in Dio’s anecdote
implies that those who came to the imperial palace for sex were involuntary
participants. The discrepancy is easily explained: for Dio, those conducted
to the palace are victims of the emperor’s tyranny, while for the moralist
Aelian, the sexual indecency of the gunaion infects the people, a symptom
of how the tyrant “disgraced Roman affairs with his utter licentiousness.”
Fragment  is about a person (whether male or female is unclear) who
apparently exhibited good judgment in his or her choice of a mime, for
the mime was skilled at using her beauty for deception. This could be
a rhetorical exaggeration of Elagabalus’ emergence in imperial politics.
Though the contemporary sources are conflicting in details, they are at least
unanimous that Elagabalus was a pawn of others, whether the dissolute
Eutukhianos, his mother Sohaemias, his grandmother Maesa, his guardian
Gannos, or some combination thereof. Deception is also a crucial part
of the narrative: Elagabalus’ descent from Caracalla was a fiction put out
by those manipulating the political scene to legitimize the boy’s claim to
the throne (D.C. ..–, .–; Hdn. ..–). Fortunately for them,
the boy played his part well, for physically he was a good representation
(mimas?) of Caracalla and he secured the favor of the army by means of his
erotic allure. Herodian is explicit on this point: though the soldiers were
surprised that a member of the imperial family would be seen dancing
in public, they were also attracted by his beauty (Hdn. ..). If this is a
 Appendix: the Katêgoria tou gunnidos 
fragment from the Katêgoria, it is probably from an early section of the
oration.
Fragment  seems to be a stereotypical description of a hetaira, and
Aelian may well have used similar language and imagery to describe Elaga-
balus’ public dancing as surpassing that of the acrobats. The second part of
the fragment, describing the wealth that the hetaira acquired by means of
manipulating her victims, seems at first difficult to apply to Elagabalus: why
would a Roman emperor concern himself with the paltry monetary gain
of prostitution? But here, too, Dio offers a parallel: Elagabalaus is said to
have collected money from his “clients,” even priding himself on his gains
(D.C. ..). The fragment’s reference to erotic jealousy (zêlotupia) also
resonates with Elagabalus’ sexual interest in the athlete Aurelios Zotikos,
which inspired jealousy in the emperor’s favorite charioteer and “husband”
Hierokles (D.C. ..). Even if we imagine the anonymous “him” of
Aelian’s fragment referring to Hierokles, there are nevertheless significant
differences. Dio’s Hierokles drugs Aurelios so that he is unable to perform
sexually, causing Elagabalus to banish the impotent athlete from Rome,
whereas the gunaion of Aelian’s fragment euphemistically freed her vic-
tim “from his present state,” meaning probably that (s)he was the cause
of his death. It also remains unclear how this might be related to the
emperor’s acquisition of wealth. Regardless, we can imagine Aelian repre-
senting Elagabalus as arousing the zêlotupia of his favorites because of the
host of “clients” that he continued to entertain.
It must be born in mind that the Katêgoria would not have dealt with
historical fact, but would rather have indulged in rhetorical exaggeration
and with rumor. It will be conceded, therefore, that even if these fragments
are not from the Katêgoria itself, then they at least offer Aelian’s literary
stylization of stereotypical scenes of hetairai and mimes that one would
expect to find in an invective targeting an effeminate emperor.
A different series of fragments that Hercher grouped together, recounting
a god’s rape of a priestess, can also be considered relevant to a reconstruction
of the Katêgoria tou gunnidos. This is fr.  Hercher, fr. a–i Domingo-
Forasté:
. ἦν δὲ ἱέρεια τῷ θεῷ κάλλος ἄμαχος. (Souda α- )
And the priestess was invincible to the god for her beauty.
. ὅμως ἡ ψυχὴ ὑπὸ τοῦ πόθου κυμαίνεται αὐτῷ, καὶ φλέγεται. (Souda
κ- )
Nevertheless his soul seethes with longing and is inflamed.
. ὁ δὲ ἀκράτωρ ἑαυτοῦ ὢν ἐσήλατο ἐς τὸν νεών. (Souda ε- )
But he, having no control over himself, rushed into the temple.
 Appendix: the Katêgoria tou gunnidos
. ὁ δὲ ἐσήλατο ἐς τὸν νεών, ἕτοιμα δὴ καταγράφων, καὶ ὅτι τολμήσει
ταῦτα ἐφ’ οἷς ἐνόσει ἐπ’ ἠρεμίᾳ τῶν ἐπικουρῆσαι τῇ κόρῃ δυναμένων
πεπιστευκώς. (Souda τ- )
But he rushed into the temple, indeed writing down what was immi-
nent and that he would dare to do these things for which he was
suffering, trusting that he wouldn’t be disturbed by those who were
able to come to the maiden’s rescue.
. ὁ δὲ οὐκ ἐφείσατο αὐτῆς ὁ ἐραστὴς ὁ ἐναγής, ἀλλ’ ἐξαγαγὼν αὐτὴν
τοῦ νεὼ πρὸς βίαν διέφθειρε μάλα ἀνοίκτως. (Souda π- )
And the cursed lover did not spare her, but dragging her out of the
temple he violently raped her without any pity.
. ἥτις δεινὸν ἡγησαμένη καὶ φορητὸν ἥκιστα ξιφιδίῳ ἑαυτὴν διέφθειρε.
(Souda φ- )
She, considering it terrible and in no way bearable, killed herself with
a dagger.
. ὃ δὲ πρὸ τῆς ἐς τοὺς πολεμίους συμπλοκῆς, ὡς εἶδεν ἀπολλύμενόν
οἱ τὸν λεών, ἐνετολμήσατο κακὸν κακῷ μείζονι ὁ παλαμναῖος ἄρα
ἐκεῖνος σβέσαι. προστάττει γοῦν τὴν ἄθλιον παρθένον δίχα τεμεῖν.
(Souda π- )
But before his struggle against the enemies, as he saw that his people
were being destroyed, that murderer dared to quench an evil with a
greater evil, yes he gives orders to cut the wretched virgin in two.
. τὰ ἡμίτομα ἐπὶ κλίναις βεβλημένα μάλα ἁβραῖς καὶ στρωμναῖς ὕφει
τινὶ ὑπερηφάνῳ κεκοσμημέναις ἐπιθέντας, ὑπὸ δᾳσὶν ἐνακμαζού-
σαις τῷ πυρὶ, καὶ τὸν ὑμέναιον ᾀδουσῶν γυναικῶν, ἐκέλευσεν
ἐκκομισθῆναι μετὰ χορείας γαμηλίου τε καὶ κερτόμου. (Souda δ-
)
Placing the halves tossed upon very soft couches and bedding, dec-
orated with a sumptuous weaving, that blazed with fire from the
torches, and while the women sang the marriage hymn, he ordered
them to be brought out with a dancing both nuptial and mocking.
. ἐμοὶ δοκεῖν, τοῦ Διονύσου τιμωροῦντος παρθένῳ δυστυχεῖ καὶ
παθούσῃ τραγῳδίας ἄξια. (Souda τ- )
I think, with Dionysus avenging a virgin unfortunate and suffering
things worthy of tragedy . . .
Cassius Dio reports that Elagabalus not only lived with the Vestal Virgin
Aquilia Severa but also “disgraced her most impiously” (ἀσεβέστατα
ᾔσχυνεν, D.C. ..), boasting that he did so in order that he, a priest,
might sire godlike children from a priestess. Dio says that this was an act
for which the emperor should have been publicly scourged, imprisoned,
 Appendix: the Katêgoria tou gunnidos 
and executed. I am not convinced that the above fragments are from the
Katêgoria: there is no evidence in the historical sources that Aquilia Severa
killed herself or that Elagabalus mutilated her dead body in some strange
mock wedding ceremony to expiate either his crime or the apparent suf-
fering of the Roman people. Nevertheless the outrageousness of the scene
depicted in the fragments gives some sense of how Aelian may have treated
Elagabalus’ sacrilegious marriage to the Vestal Virgin. He would surely
have emphasized the emperor’s akolasia, or inability to control his sexual
desires; he would have exploited what Dio too thought of as the ridicu-
lousness of a god needing marriage and children (D.C. ..); he would
have vilified the impiety by emphasizing the brutality of the rape; and he
may also have imbued his description of the wedding ceremony itself with
an orientalizing exaggeration of the exoticism of foreign ceremonial (cf.
D.C. .).
These last three short fragments – not grouped together by Hercher
or Domingo-Forasté – would have been entirely appropriate in Aelian’s
diatribe against Elagabalus. These are frs. , ,  Hercher; , ,
 Domingo-Forasté.
. θίασόν τε μίμων καὶ κορδακιστῶν περὶ αὑτὸν μάλα πλῆθος εἶχε.
(Souda θ- )
And he had a very large company of mimes and dancers about him.
. ὁ γύνανδρός τε καὶ μάλθων τύραννος. (Souda μ- )
The androgynous and soft tyrant.
. ὅσα ἐπράττετο, καὶ μοῦσά τις ἂν ὀκνήσειεν εἰπεῖν τραγική. οὐ
γὰρ βούλεται ταῦτα γίνεσθαι, καὶ τὸ λέγειν ἀπηγόρευσε. (Souda
μ- )
The things that he did even a muse of tragedy would be reluctant to
say. For she does not wish these things to happen and has forbidden
speaking of them.
Fragment  could be used to emphasize Elagabalus’ infamous interest in
dancing, assimilating him to a performing emperor in the manner of Nero.
As for fragment , Elagabalus’ perceived effeminacy was well known, and
this is just the kind of phrase Aelian would have used to describe him in
the Katêgoria. Finally, one can easily imagine Aelian writing something like
fragment , unwilling to publicize the more indecent of the emperor’s
licentious transgressions: if such deeds were unfit for the tragic stage, then
the basest crimes of Elagabalus are unfit even for the moralist’s scabrous
invective.
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Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier III.
 General index

Achilles Tatius , , , , , , , , Atalante , , , , , , , ,
 , 
Aeneas , , , ,  Atargatis 
Aeschylus ,  Athena , , 
Aesop ,  Athenaeus , , , , , , 
aitnaios , ,  Athenians , , , , , , , , , , ,
akolasia , , ,  , , , , , , , , , ,
Alciphron , , , ,  , , , , 
Alexander of Mundos  Athens , , 
Alexander Severus , , , , ,  Augustus , , , , , , , , , ,
Alexander the Great , , , , , , , , , , 
, , , , , , ,  Aulus Gellius , , , , 
Alexandria , , , , , , , , , Aurelian 
, 
Anacreon  baboons 
Androkles , , , , , , , , Bakhtin, Mikhail 
 Barthes, Roland 
anthias ,  bears , , , , , 
ants ,  bees , , , , , , , , , , ,
apes  , , , , , , , , , 
apheleia  beetles , 
Aphrodite , , , , , , , , , Bhabha, Homi 
, , , , , ,  boars , , , , 
Apion , , , , , ,  Brisson, Luc , 
Apollo , , , , , , , , ,
, , ,  Callimachus , , , 
Apuleius ,  calves 
Ares  camels , 
Arion  Capitoline hill , , , , , , 
Aristainetos  Caracalla , , , , , , , , , ,
Aristophanes , , , , , , ,  , , , , , , , , , ,
Aristotle , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 
, , , , , ,  Cassius Dio , , , , , , , ,
Arrian  , , , , , 
Artemis , , , , , , ,  cats 
Asklepios ,  Censorinus 
Aspasia , , , , , , , , , chameleons 
, , ,  Chariton , , , , , 
Aspasius of Ravenna  Chrysippus , , , , , 
asps , , , ,  Cicero , , 
asses , , ,  Claudius 


 General index
Clement of Alexandria ,  , , , , , , , , , ,
Cleopatra , ,  , , 
cocks ,  Emesa , , , 
Commodus , , , , , , ,  Ennius , 
Constitutio Antoniniana  Epictetus , , , 
Cornutus  Epicureanism , , , 
cranes  Eratosthenes 
Crassus , ,  erôs , , , , , , , , , , ,
Creusa ,  , , , , , , , , ,
crocodiles , , , , , , ,  , , , , , , 
crows , , , , , , , , , Ethiopia , , , 
 Etruria , , , 
cuckoos  Etruscans , 
Cynicism , , ,  Euripides , , , , , , , , ,
, , 
deer , , , , , , , 
Deleuze, Gilles , , ,  Favorinus , , 
Demeter ,  flies , 
Demokritos  Fortuna , , 
Demosthenes ,  Foucault, Michel , , , , 
Demostratos , ,  foxes , , 
Dido  frogs , , 
dikairon 
Dio of Prusa , , , , ,  Galba 
Diodoros of Sicily , ,  Galen , 
Diogenes Laertius , , , ,  gazelles , 
Diomedes , , , , , , , , , , geese , , , , , , , , , ,
,  , 
Dionysius of Halikarnassos  gender , , , , , , , , ,
Dionysus , , , , , , , ,  , 
dogs , , , , , , , , , , , Germanicus Caesar , , 
, , , , , , , , , , Geta , , , 
 goats , , , , , , , , , 
dolphins , , , , , , , , grups , 
, , ,  Guattari, Félix , , , 
doves  gulls 

eagles , , , , , , , , , Hadrian , , , , 
, , , , , ,  hares , , , , , , , , , 
eels , , ,  hawks , , , , , 
effeminacy , , , , , , , , , Helen , , , , 
, , , , , , , , , , Helios , , , , , , , , , ,
 , , , , , , , , , 
Egypt , , , , , , , , , , , , Hephaistos , 
, , , , , , , , , , , Hera , , , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , , , , 
, , , , , , , , , , Herakleı̈s , , , , , , , 
, , , , , , , ,  Herakles , , , , , , 
ekphrasis , , , , ,  Hermes , , 
Elagabal , , , , , ,  Hermogenes , , , 
Elagabalus , , , , , , , , , , Herodes Atticus , 
, , , , , , , , , , Herodian , , , , , , , , ,
, , , ,  
elephants , , , , , , , , , , , Herodotus , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , , , , 
 General index 
Hesiod , ,  Libya , , , 
Homer , , , , , , , , , , lions , , , , , , , , , , , ,
, , ,  , , , , , , , , , ,
hoopoes , , , , ,  , , , , , , , , , ,
horses , , , , , , , , , , , , 
, , ,  Livy , , 
Hortensius , ,  lizards , , 
hunting , , , , , , , , , , , logos , , , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , ,  
hyenas , , , , , ,  Longus , , , , , , , 
Hyginus  Lucian , , , , , , , 
Lucius Ampelius , 
ibises , , , , , ,  Lucullus 
ichneumons , , , , , ,  Lukaon 
India , , , , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , , , Maecenas , , , 
, , , , , , , , , , Marcus Aurelius , , , , , , 
, , ,  Marcus Volusius 
Indictment of the Little Woman , , , , , marriage , , , , , , , , , , ,
, ,  , , , , , , , , , ,
intersex  , 
Isis , , , , , , , , , , martens 
, ,  Martial 
Isocrates  martikhoras 
Medea , , 
John of Stobi  Menander , , , , , , , 
Josephus  metamorphosis , , , , , , , , ,
Juba , , , , , , ,  , , , , , , , , , ,
Julia Domna , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 
, , , ,  mice , , , 
Julia Sohaemias  monkeys , , , 
Julius Africanus , ,  morays 
Julius Pollux , ,  Mucianus 
Juno , , , 
Jupiter , , , ,  nature , , , , , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , , ,
katreus  , , , , , , , , , ,
kephalos  , , , , , , , , , ,
kerkiôn ,  , , , , , , , , , ,
khannê  , , , , 
kingship , , , , , , , , , Nerites , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , , , 
, , ,  nêritês , , 
Ktesias ,  Nero , , 
kunokephalos  Nikostratos 
Nile , , , , 
Laenilla , , , , 
Lanuvium , , ,  Octavian, see Augustus
Latin , , , , , , , , , , , , octopus , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , ,  
Latinus , ,  Oedipus 
Lavinia , , ,  On Manifestations of the Divine , 
Lavinium , , ,  On Providence 
leopards , , ,  Oppian , , 
 General index
Osiris , ,  Pythagoreanism , , , , , , ,
Ovid , , , , , , , ,  , , , , , 
oxen , , , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , ,  rabbits 
oxurhunkhos  rams 
ravens , 
paideia , , , , , , ,  ringdoves 
paiderastia ,  Rome , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Pamphila ,  , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Pan , , ,  , , , , , , , , , , , ,
paradoxography , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
 , , , , , , , , , ,
partridges , , ,  , , , , , , , 
Pausanias , , ,  Romulus , 
peacocks , , , , ,  Rustic Letters , , , , , 
Persephone 
Persia , , , , , , , , , , Sappho 
, , , ,  Sarapis , , , , , 
Petronius , , , , ,  sargos 
Phaedrus , ,  scorpions , 
Philo ,  Selene , , 
Philostratus , , , , , , , , , , , , Semonides 
, , , , , , , , , , , , , senate , , , , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 
, , , , ,  Seneca the Younger , 
Philostratus the Lemnian ,  Septimius Severus , , , , , , , ,
phoenixes , ,  , , , , , , , 
Photios  sex , , , , , , , , , , ,
phusa  , , , , , , , , , ,
pigeons , , , ,  , , , , , , 
Pindos , , , , , , , , , shearwaters 
 sheep , 
Plato , , , , , , , , , , sittakos 
, , , , , , , , , , skaros , , , 
, , , ,  slavery , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Pliny the Elder , , , ,  , , , , , , , , , ,
Pliny the Younger  , , , , , , , , , ,
Plutarch , , , , , , , , , , , , , 
, ,  snakes , , , , , , , , , , ,
poikilia , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , , , 
, ,  Socrates , , , , , , , , , ,
Polubios  , , , , , , , , , ,
Pompey , ,  
porphura  Sokles , , , , , , 
Poseidon , , , , , , , sôphrosunê , , , , , , , ,
 , , , 
Praeneste , , , , , , , , , , Spain , , 
, ,  Sparta , , 
Prodikos ,  stingrays 
progumnasmata , ,  Stoicism , , , , , , , , , ,
Prokne , ,  , , , , , , , , , ,
Propertius  , , , , , , , , , , ,
Proteus  , , , , , , , , , 
 General index 
storks , , , , , , , , turtles 
 tyranny , , , , , , , , ,
Strato , ,  , , , , , , 
swallows , , , , 
swans , , , , , , Varied History , , 
 Varro , 
Sybaris , , ,  Venus , 
Syria , , , , , , , , , , , Vergil , , , , , , 
, , , , , ,  Veyne, Paul , 
virginity , , , , , , , , , ,
Tarentum , , , , , , , , , , , , , 
, ,  vultures , , 
Teiresias , , , 
Tereus  weasels , 
Theocritus  wolves , , , , , , , 
Thucydides , 
ticks  Xenophon , , , , , 
Titus ,  Xenophon of Ephesus 
tortoises , 
transgender , ,  Zeno , , , , , , 
Troy , , , ,  Zeus , , , , , , , , , ,
truphê , , , , ,  , , , , , , , , , ,
turtledoves , ,  , , , 
 Index locorum

Achilles Tatius .: 

.–:  .: 
..:  .: 
.–:  .: 
.:  .: 
..:  .: 
Aelian .: 
Ep. .: , , 
:  .: , , , , , , , 
: , , ,  .: 
: ,  .: 
: , ,  .: , 
:  .: 
: ,  .: 
: , , , ,  .: 
: ,  .: , 
: ,  .: 
:  .: 
:  .: 
:  .: 
:  .: 
:  .: 
:  .: 
Fragments .: 
 Hercher ( Domingo-Forasté):  .: 
 Hercher ( Domingo-Forasté):  .: 
 Hercher ( Domingo-Forasté):  .: , 
 Hercher ( Domingo-Forasté): , .: 
 .: 
 Hercher ( Domingo-Forasté):  .: , 
 Hercher ( Domingo-Forasté)  .: , 
 Hercher ( Domingo-Forasté):  .: 
NA .: 
.: , , , ,  .: 
.: ,  .: 
.:  .: , 
.:  .: 
.:  .: , 
.:  .: 
.:  .: 
.:  .: 


 Index locorum 
.:  .: 
.: , , ,  .: 
.:  .: , , 
.:  .: , 
.: , ,  .: , , , , 
.:  .: , 
.: , , , ,  .: 
.:  .: 
.:  .: 
.:  .: 
.: , , ,  .: 
.:  .: 
.:  .: 
.:  .: 
.:  .: 
.: ,  .: 
.: ,  .: 
.: ,  .: 
.: , ,  .: , , 
.:  .: 
.: , , , ,  .: , , , , , 
.: ,  .: 
.:  .: 
.: ,  .: 
.:  .: 
.:  .: 
.:  .: , 
.: , , ,  .: 
.: ,  .: , 
.:  .: 
.:  .: , , , 
.: ,  .: 
.:  .: 
.:  .: 
.:  .: 
.:  .: 
.: ,  .: 
.:  Epilogue: , , , , , , , , ,
.:  , , , , , , , , , ,
.: , , ,  
.:  Preface: , , , , , 
.:  VH
.: ,  .: 
.: , , , , ,  .: 
.:  .: 
.:  .: 
.: ,  .: 
.:  .: , 
.: ,  .: 
.: , , , ,  .: 
.:  .: 
.:  .: 
.:  .: 
.:  .: 
.: , ,  .: 
 Index locorum
Aelian (cont.) Dio of Prusa
.: , , , , , .–: 
 Diodoros of Sicily
.:  .–: 
.:  ..: 
.:  ..–: 
.:  Diogenes Laertius
.: , , , ,  .: 
.:  .: 
.:  .: 
.:  .: , 
.: ,  .: 
.:  .: 
Aeschylus .–: 
A. .: 
–:  .: , 
:  .: , 
Aristaenetus .–: 
.:  .: 
Aristophanes .: , 
Av. .: , 
–:  .: 
–:  .: 
Nu. .–: 
–:  .–: 
–:  .: 
Aristophanes of Byzantium Dionysius of Halikarnassos
Epit. ..: 
.:  Dioscorides
Aristotle de Materia Medica
EN .: 
b–: 
GA Epictetus
a–:  ..: 
HA Euripides
b–:  Ba.
–: 
Callimachus –: 
Fr. .:  : 
Cassius Dio –: 
.–:  El.
.–:  –: 
..–.:  IA
..:  : 
..:  –: 
..: , 
..:  Gellius
.:  .: , , ,
.–:  
..–:  Preface: , 
.–: 
.–:  Hermogenes
Cicero Id.
Catil. ..: 
.:  ..–: 
.:  .: 
 Index locorum 
Prog. Oppian
.–:  C.
Herodian .–: 
..:  .–: 
..–:  H.
..–:  .: 
..: ,  .: 
..:  .–: 
..–:  Ovid
Herodotus Ep.
.:  .–: 
Hesiod Met.
Op. .–: 
: 
Historia Augusta Pausanias
Alexander Severus ..–: 
.:  Petronius
Caracalla Sat.
.:  .: 
Severus .–: 
.:  .–.: 
Homer .: 
Il. Philostratus
.–:  Im.
.:  Preface –: 
Od. .: , 
.–:  VA
Hyginus .: 
Fab. .: 
:  .–: 
.: 
Isocrates .–: 
Antidosis ..: 
:  VS
:  : 
:  –: 
–: 
Josephus : 
AJ : 
..:  –: 
Juvenal : 
.–:  : , , , , , 
: , , , , , , ,
Longus 
.:  : 
Lucian Photios
Syr.D. Bibl.
–:  b–: 
:  Pindar
:  O.
:  –: 
:  Plato
Hp.Ma.
Menander e: 
Georg. c–d: 
–:  a–b: 
 Index locorum
Plato (cont.) δ-
e–e:  : 
e:  : 
Phdr. ε-
e–d:  : 
a:  : 
a–a:  : 
e–d:  θ-
R. : 
d–b: , κ-
 : 
a–b:  : 
Pliny the Elder : 
Nat. μ-
.: ,  : 
.:  : 
.:  π-
.:  : 
.–:  : 
.:  τ-
Plutarch : 
Mar. : 
.–:  υ-
Moralia : 
c:  φ-
f:  : 
e: 
Rom. Theocritus
.:  .–: 
Pollux
..:  Vergil
Polubios A.
.:  .–: 
Propertius .–: 
..:  G.
.–: 
Sappho .: 
: 
Souda Xenophon
α- Cyr.
:  ..: 
αι- Mem.
:  ..: 
:  ..–: 