The Good and Evil Serpent (32 page)

Cadmus is shown fighting an aroused hydra.
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The supposition that on the earth there were serpents with more than one head was recorded by Aelian. Presumably drawing upon a work entitled
Concerning Wild Animals
by a certain Pammenes, he claimed that “there are two-headed Snakes (
) which have two feet in the region of the tail.”
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The Argonauts are portrayed battling the dragon-serpent,
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and Sep-tem is shown about to kill a serpent.
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Archemoros is depicted as a child in the coils of a large serpent,
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and Cadmus before a threatening and large serpent.
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From the influential and classical myths comes a depiction of Jason being swallowed by a large serpent,
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befriending a serpent that is in a tree,
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and fighting a serpent that has a goatee or beard.
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This description may be odd for us but not for the ancients, since Aelian reported that it is common knowledge that there are serpents with beards (or goatees) beneath their chins.
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We find another more believable explanation for the serpent’s beard in the
Scholia in Nicandrum (Ad Theriaca
438): “The serpent … is by nature black, with a yellow pale belly, beautiful in shape … and along its chin raised scales give the impression of a beard, yellow like the body.”
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Aphrodite is depicted with serpents,
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and Mars between two large upraised serpents.
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One or more Maenads are shown thrusting forward an aroused serpent,
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holding a thyrsus (rod) with a coiled serpent
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or just holding a serpent.
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Scylla is usually depicted with a dragon’s tail or fish tails; she is also shown with anguipedes.
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More than a few deities were portrayed anatomically, as we have already seen, with serpent characteristics. Chimaera was depicted as a lion with a ram protruding from his back and with a serpent as a tail.
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Titeos is portrayed as a “lion” with a serpent as a tail.
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Did the Learned Not Reject Serpent Mythology and Symbology?

Did not the educated Greeks and Romans tend to discount these myths? Yes; although many intellectuals recognized their power and utility, they did not take the myths literally. The best example is found in the writings of Cicero. This learned Roman could not tolerate such uninformed mythology. In his work on the nature of the gods (De
natura deorum
1.101), he claims that the Egyptians foolishly deified animals. Cicero scoffs at the belief that the ibis “protects Egypt from plague, by killing and eating flying serpents
(volucris anguis)
that are brought from the Libyan desert by the southwest wind.”
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Also in the same work he rightly castigates the superstitions of the many and the erroneous portrayal of the gods. Cicero advised his contemporaries to consider such nonsense “old wives’ “ tales (De
natura deorum
2.70–72).

Socrates in the pages of Xenophon can claim that if the universe had no soul it would be impossible, or at least difficult, to imagine the source of our own soul. Cicero demurs. He admits that there is “concord and harmony” in nature, but he claims that “coherence and permanence are achieved by the forces not of the gods, but of nature.”
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Another example of the rejection of serpent iconography is found in the writings of Ovid. After 8
CE
, when Ovid was exiled (actually “relegated”
[relegates])
and Augustus forbade anyone to correspond with him, he wrote that it was more difficult to believe that a dear and loyal friend had not written to him than to believe “that the gorgon Medusa’s face was garlanded with serpent hair
[anguineis]
, that there is a Chimera, formed of a lioness and serpent held apart by a flame … and Giants with serpent feet
[serpentipedesque Gigantes].”
That is, all these are easier for Ovid to believe than to imagine his beloved friend had forsaken his love for him (my translation;
Tristia
4.7.1–26). It is clear that Ovid did not believe that a Medusa existed with serpents for hair, a Chimera that was part lioness and part serpent, and Giants with serpent feet. Finally, in Virgil the serpent is usually a negative symbol.
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The Poetic Imagination of the Greeks and Romans

Rather than proceeding as if only words had been gathered together, we should stop and reflect on the denigration of serpent imagery by some great minds. What did the Greek and Roman iconography symbolize, and what symbolic power did it possess? It was widespread, as we have been seeing, and clearly many of the intelligentsia approved of it.

The serpent images show remarkable imagination. It is arresting to contemplate a Giant with serpents as feet.
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It is difficult to suppose that the intelligentsia in Greece and Rome took such images literally.
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They were symbols for something beyond the literal. The point seems to have been missed by Lucretius, who could not imagine that in primordial times the Chimera had such a form, with “in front a lion, in the rear a serpent, [and] in the middle, as her name shows, a goat
[prima leo, postrema draco, media ipsa, Chimaera].”
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We need to remember that symbols point our mind and imagination to that which cannot be stated or explained. We so-called moderns have trouble with what was culturally engrained in the Greeks: the poetics of imagination and the art of perspective. Our perception of the world is incomplete and abstracted since we have no place or canon in which to perceive and appreciate “perspective,” as James Elkins reminds us in his
The Poetics of Perspective.
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The ancient ophidian iconography is not bizarre; we are presented with symbols that are suggestive of concepts and ideas, many of which have been stressed already. Suffice it to state now that the ordinary lion is so impressive and ferocious that to encapsulate its power the ancients add, for example, a serpent on its back or as a tail.

As we continue to contemplate the meaning of the symbol of the serpent in antiquity, it is essential to attempt to enter into their symbolic universe. How did the ancients comprehend the world; was it not full of wild, mysterious, and wondrously complex animals? The attempt to enter their world is ultimately impossible, but it may be facilitated by imagining that the following account, from Aelian, is accurate:

In Metelis, a town of Egypt, there is a sacred Serpent [
] in a tower, and it receives honours and has ministers and servants, and before it are set a table and a bowl. So every day they pour barley into this bowl and soak it in honey and milk and then depart, returning on the following day to find the bowl empty.
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This account by Aelian clarifies and proves our earlier surmises regarding what the ancients offered the sacred serpents to eat and drink. It also indicates that the ancients attributed human characteristics to the serpent. This serpent even has ministers and servants who wait on it as if it were a god or king.

In Greek and Roman mythology the serpent symbolically represents not only the obscure powers that the Greeks and Romans thought tormented gods and humans, but also the positive attributes of numerous gods. As Artemidorus reported in
Onirocritica
, the “serpents [ApaKtov] … stand for all the gods who are sacred. These are Zeus, Sabazius, Helios, Demeter, Kore, Hecate, Asclepius, [and] the Heroes.”
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In the following pages, we will focus on Zeus, Asclepius, and other gods and goddesses who are more significantly represented by snakes.

THE INDIVIDUAL GODS OR GODDESSES AND SERPENT ICONOGRAPHY

In a focused attempt to understand the symbolism of (or behind) the Fourth Gospel, I will highlight from Hellenic and Hellenistic iconography and Greek and Roman authors the gods and heroes (since the boundaries between them were fluid) who were associated in the Hellenic and Hellenistic mind with the serpent. Thus, the following will be discussed briefly: Hermes (Mercury), Agathos Daimon or Agathadaimon, Giants, Hercules, Cerberus, Laocoon, Glykon, Medusa, Ladon, Aion, Ouroboros, Babli, Chnoubis, Zeus, Apollo, Mithra, Abraxas, Asclepius, and Hygieia. I will then conclude by asking some central questions concerning Greek and Roman serpent symbology and by quoting and assessing the uniquely significant comments about the meaning of the serpent by Philo of Byblos.

Hermes (Mercury)

Hermes (Mercury) is the messenger of the gods; he communicates not only their will to humans but also human prayers to the gods.
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He is the Greek god who mediates between heaven and earth.

The Greek imagination associated Hermes with the caduceus.
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He is often depicted with a staff with one, two, or three circles. Above them are two serpents.
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The caduceus is often only stylized serpents, but sometimes the heads of the caduceus reveal two realistic snakes with mouths open, as in the mosaic “da Porta Portese” now in the Vatican Museum.
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Usually, the serpents face each other; sometimes they look in opposite di-rections.
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Hermes is also conceived to be the guide of the dead to the next world that is imagined to be under the earth—that is, the chthonic realm.
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He is the god who dwells under the earth;
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thus, his chthonic nature is understandably symbolized by serpents. Sometimes, the circles are stylized ser-pents.
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As J. L. Henderson states, an “important and widespread symbol of chthonic transcendence is the motif of the two entwined serpents. These are the famous Naga serpents of ancient India; and we also find them in Greece as the entwined serpents on the end of the staff belonging to the god Hermes.”
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