Lucyna Kostuch

The Virtues of the Female in Aelian’s De natura animalium

In De natura animalium, Aelian describes the animal world in a manner that succumbs to the tendency to anthropomorphize that is rooted in the human mind – a phenomenon currently widely discussed in ethological and cognitive research. The author observes a female animal seeing in her the features of a woman. However, Aelian’s understanding is not superficial. At the same time, he tries to penetrate the perceptual environment of the male of a particular species and look at the female through his eyes. In some cases, the male animal analyzes the behaviour of a female, e.g., his female owner. In Aelian’s work, natural observations overlap with the author’s moral reflections (personal and as a product of his era) creating a set of virtues that could be assigned to the female sex. In the approach proposed by Aelian, these virtues are not always stereotypical, because apart from female virtues that are obvious in ancient culture, there are also less obvious ones: physical strength and courage, independence, speed in action, activity, as well as beauty that is a product of splendour. In De natura animalium, the traditional catalogue positive features attributed to the female sex seen through the prism of natural observations is modified.

God, city resident, son of a king, orator, sculptor, a box with a woman and a child, a statue of a bull, a statue of an athlete, an axe, iron, wood, stone – is a far from complete list of “outlaws” in Pausanias’ Description of Greece. Periegeta combines all those living and lifeless elements, creating a Hellenic monument. He presents what he thinks was the driving force of history: exiles, escapes, displacements, forced migrations due to wars and fighting for power, murders, competition failures, plagues, poor harvests. It all led to creation of new cities, their names, colonization of new areas, erecting new temples and creating works of art. A detail was to become exceptionally famous both because of its artistic value and life wandering, or even disasters. Art and wandering are given the same value by Pausanias. It is confirmed by the exiled sculptures dealt with in Description. The articles also mentions envious gods as a source of exile and wandering, types of exiles: from common murderers to destructive objects; places and forms of exile, including changing into a stone; monuments to commemorate wicked outlaws and healing quality of exiled objects.

Although the ancient Greeks did not use the concept of tolerance, they were not unfamiliar with the concept of sneer, malicious laugh or mockery. Tolerance, or the lack of it, can be examined on various levels, also on the most important one deriving from the original meaning of the word tolerantia, that is religion. Although the religious system of the ancient Greeks is commonly described as a "tolerant" one, mainly because their faith did not exclude the existence of gods worshipped by other peoples, the Greek gods – understood as a community – committed acts of injustice and discrimination towards each other. Hephaestus proves to be the best example being the closest to a man of all the Olypmic gods. He experienced pain in the world of gods but in a human manner, which would undoubtedly be considered intolerance today. No other god had so many characteristics of an imperfect human being. The ancient imagination made Hephaestus an impaired god – both on the physical and social plane. He was an illegitimate child, he limped and worked by the sweat of his brow doing the job which was not held in high regard by the Greeks. In short words, Hephaestus represented the type held in contempt in Hellenic society. What is interesting, the oldest description of a derisive laugh in European literature belongs to Hephaestus.

THE ‘HOPLITE HELL’. THE SUN IN THE HELLENIC BATTLE NARRATION

The Mediterranean sun confronted with a heavily armed warrior is a commonly known paradox in the ancient Greece. The opposition of these two elements forms the main framework of numerous studies and most recently the term ‘the Hoplite hell’ was coined in order to refer to the phenomenon. Contemporary scholars agree that the sun was one of the main obstacles which the ancient Greek warriors had to fight, as it heated the ground up to 32°C in the morning. It might seem surprising however that the ancient Greek literary sources very rarely depict Grecian warriors tormented by the sun rays and the picture is far from being a battlefield topos. In the military context, the distant object on the blue horizon appears to be physically separated from the earth surface and from the fighters; and its role seems to be different from what one could expect. The author of the article tries to present the functions attributed to the sun in the battlefield by the ancient Greeks according to the preserved testimonies.
 

“[…] for fear that the people of Scione should hereafter be called traitors”

Herodotus and other Greek authors about loyalty and betrayal in the besieged city This study attempts to determine the frequency of the betrayal of a besieged city in the world of Herodotus. The Histories is an excellent source of knowledge about the attitude of Greeks towards disloyal fellow citizens opening the city gates to the enemy, at a time when siege machines were not yet known, and betrayal (along with hunger and deception) was practically the only chance to conquer the city. Consequently, the question arises: do broader historical and literary studies (testimonies from subsequent decades and centuries) allow us to see the correlation between the popularity of the phenomenon of city betrayal and the development of siege technique. Was the role of betrayal decreasing with time when tools appeared that could assault the city walls? The article is an attempt to answer the question about the importance of loyalty to the local community in the face of war in the context of changing external conditions.