Honouring the gods in the classical Mediterranean realm and on its fringes

Introduction

The phoenix is a legendary bird. Classical accounts, principally those of Herodotus[1] and Pliny[2] report his resurrection after dying on a pyre of aromatic wood at the end of a lifespan of variable length. The legend of the phoenix probably came to us from the East. Integrated into the Egyptian cult, apparently by the priests of Heliopolis, it is in the Greek world that the bird is best known, under the name of Phoenix. For the Church Fathers, the phoenix is really a symbol of Christ, often understood as an analogy for resurrection and the soul's survival. Medieval sources, whether Muslim or Christian, refer to a fabulous bird, who burns itself to death then rises again from its ashes. Arab texts have diversely transliterated the name from the Greek or called the bird anqa, or qaqnus.

  1. Herodotus (c. 484-c. 420 BC)

    The “father of history” in Cicero's words proposes that the cult of Poseidon originated in Libya whence the Greeks borrowed it (Book II, 50). The information gleaned in the course of his extensive travelling also ranks him among the first geographers. We owe him the first text of Greek literature defining the various forms of government, the first text of political thought. In his Histories, III, 80.1 he puts in the mouth of three Persians (King Darius and his generals Ótanes and Megabizo) the benefits and harms of the monarchy, democracy and oligarchy. According to him the cult of a marine god was averred among the Libyans long before the foundation of Carthage: “those who dwell round the lake Tritonis (Gulf of Gabes), he wrote, sacrifice most of all to Athene, and next, to Triton and Poseidon” (Histoires, IV, 188)

  2. Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD)

    First century Roman writer, author of an encyclopaedia entitled Natural History (Naturalis Historia) running to 37 volumes. It is Pliny's only work to have reached us and it has long served as a reference in science and technology. Pliny compiled the knowledge of his age in subjects as far ranging as natural sciences, astronomy, “anthropology”, psychology, history, etc.

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