SERPENT-WORSHIP
681
of the fertility of nature. Myth explained it as a celebration ofthe capture of Kore by Plouton.1 The Maenads (“ mad ones”)or Bacchae, the women attendants of Dionysus, with theirsnake-accompaniments, are only one of the various snake-featuresassociated with the cult of a deity who was also a god of healing.The symbol of the Bacchic orgies was a consecrated serpent,and the snakes kept in the sacred cistae of the cult of Dionysusfind a parallel among the sect of the Ophites where, at thesacramental rites, bread was odered to the living serpent andafterwards distributed among the worshippers.” Other developmentsmay be illustrated from the cult of Aesculapius, whoseems to have been merely a deified ancestor, like the EgyptianImhotep (below) or the interesting Indian healer Sokha Baba(Crooke i. 147, ii. 122). Introduced into Athens about 421 B.c.,Aesculapius inherited the older local cult of the serpent “ protector” Amynos (Harrison, 346 seq.). In Laodicea he apparentlyreplaced an older deity with serpent attributes? In Egypt,he superseded the sage Imhotep at Memphis, and at the templesacred to Aesculapius and Hygieia at Ptolemais the money-boxhas been found with the upper part in the form of a great snake!Finally among the Phoenicians he was identified with Eshmun,an earlier god of healing, who in turn was already closely associatedwith Dionysus and with Caelestis-Astarte.5
For the retention of older cults under a new name, Mahommedanismsupplies several examples, as when a forest-serpentof India receives a Mahommedan name (Oldham 128).
- £°;;, h But sometimes there is a contest between the new
p, ,, ,, cult and the old. Thus Apollo has to fight the oracleserpent of Gaia, and it has been observed that whereApollo prevailed in Greek religion the serpent became a monsterto be slain.° At Thebes-the Thebans were Serpentigenae-Apollotook the place of Cadmus, who, after killing the dragonwhich guarded a well and freeing the district, had ended bybeing turned into a serpent. This looks like the assumption ofindigenous traits by a foreigner-cf. Aesculapius (§ 13)-muchin the same way as Hercules has contests with serpents anddragons, becomes the patron of medicinal springs, and bymarrying the serpent Echidna was the ancestor of the snake worshippingScythiansf 'But an ethnological tradition appearswhen Phorbas killed the serpent Ophiusa, freed Rhodes of snakesand obtained supremacy, or when Cychreus slew the dragon ofSalamis and took the kingdom.” A story told by Herodotus(i. 78) admirably shows how the serpent as a child of earth was1 Harrison, 109 seq., 120 sqq., and art. THESMOPHORIA. The ritesincluded the “ pursuit, " possibly derived from the intentionalopportunity of escape allowed the victim. Plouton, also associatedwith Proserpine, the great mother-goddess, was patron of the chasmswith mephitic vapours in the valley of the Maeander (see Frazer,Adonis, 170 sqq.).
A Greek vase shows snake-bodied nymphs at the grape-harvest(Harrison 259 seq.), and in Egypt the harvest goddess Rannut hadsnake-form (F. Petrie, Relig. of Ancient Egypt, 1906, p. 26). Theserpent-god revered by Taxilus (king of Taxila), which was seen byAlexander the Great on his way to India, was identified by Greekwriters with Dionysus or Bacchus. For the serpent in the cult ofSabazius, see Harrison, Prol. 418, 535. A kind of sacramentalcommunion with a snake is found among a Punjab snake-tribe(Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 441 seq.; Punjab Notes and ggeries, ii. 91).For this and other Phrygian evidence, see W. M. msay, Citiesand Bishoprics of Phrygia, i. 52, 94, 104.
Ig. Zeit. xl. 140 seq. Aehan (De anim. xvi. 36) mentions a hugeserpent at the temple dedicated to Aesculapius. Serapis (Osiris-Apis)who came to acquire the attributes of Aesculapius and of Pluto,god of the dead, sometimes had serpent-form, and even in the reignof Constantine popular belief connected the rise of the Nile with hisagency (Frazer, Adonis, 398).
See on this branch o the subject, W. W. G. Baudissin, Zeit. d.morgenl. Gesell. lix. (1905), 459-522, and Orient. Stud. TheodorNaldeke (ed. Bezold, .1?>6), ii. 729 sqq.
Harrison, Journ. ell. Stud. xix. 223, cf. Proleg. 392; and E.Rohde, Psyche, i. 133 seq.
"I-lerod. iv. 9; for Hercules and healing waters, see Frazer,Adonis, 174 seq.; cf. above, § 5. Here arises the question of thetendency to attribute to outside aid the introduction of culture(cf. § 2), and even of law (F. Pollock, ed. of Maine's Ancient Law,9°7- 9' I9)' . . . . . . .
Cf. the similar view of serpent-conflicts in Persian tradition(Fergusson, 44 seq.), and the story of the colonization of Cambodia,where the new-comer marries the dragon-king's daughter (ib. 53).a type of indigenous peoples, and there was a tendency torepresent the earlier conquered races as monsters and demons,though not necessarily unskilled (e.g. the Cretan Kourétes),or to depict the conquest of barbarians as the overthrow ofserpents or serpent-like beings.” This obviously complicatesthe investigation of serpent-cults. Moreover, the serpent ordragon may have an opponent like the eagle (see Goblet d'Alviella,17), or a cosmical antagonist-the lightning, thunder or rain-god.Indra, the rain-god, slew with a thunderbolt Ahi or Vitra, whokept back the waters (Oldham, 32 sqq.); the thunder-god of theIroquois killed the subterranean serpent which fed on humanflesh (Hartland iii. 1 51).'° Or the victor is the sun: the Egyptiansun-god Re had his fire-spitting serpent to oppose his enemies,of which one was the cloud and storm serpent Apophis, whilein Greek myth the sanctuary of Helios (the sun) sheltered theyoung Orpheus from the snake.
It is impossible to trace a safe path through the complicatedetiological myths, the fragments of reshaped legend andtradition, or the adjustment of rival theologies. It~ ~ 15. In
remains to observe the overthrow or super session of the Chr, ”serpent in Christian lands. At Axum in Abyssinia, ¢;, ,, n, ,where worship was divided between the serpent andthe Mosaic Law, it is said that the great dragon was burstasunder by the prayers of Christian saints (c. A.D. 340; Fergusson,35). At the Phrygian Hierapolis the serpent Echidna wasexpelled by the Apostles Philip and John.“ France had itstraditions of the destruction of serpents by the early missionaries(Deane, 283 seq.), and the memory possibly survived at Luchonin the Pyrenees, where the clergy and people celebrated the eveof St John by burning live serpents.” Christian saints have alsostepped into the shoes of earlier serpent-slayers, while, in thestories of “ St George and the Dragon ” type, the victory of thepious over the enemy of mankind has often been treated as aliteral conflict with dragons, thus introducing a new and confusingelement into the subject. This purely secondary aspect of theserpent as the devil cannot be noticed here.” At Rouen thecelebration of St Romain seems to preserve a recollection ofhuman sacrifice to a serpent-demon which was primarily suppressedby a pagan hero, and at Metz, where St Clement iscelebrated as the conqueror of a dragon, its image (formerlykept in the cathedral) was taken round the streets at the annualfestival and received offerings of food.” Most remarkable of all,at Cocullo in the Abruzzi mountains on the border of the oldterritory of the Marsi snake-men (see § 8), the serpent-deity hasa lineal descendant in the shape of St Domenico of Foligno(A.D. QSO'°IO3I). The shrine is famous for its cures, and whenthe saint has his serpent-festival on the first Thursday in May,Serpari or serpent-men carry coils of live reptiles in processionbefore his image, which in turn is hung with serpents of allsizes. The rites, we may suppose, have become modified andmore orthodox, but none the less they are a valuable testimonyto the persistence of the cult among people who still claim powerover serpents and immunity from their bite, and who live hardby the home of the ancient tribe which ascribed its origin tothe son of Circe.15 One may recall the old cult of Sabazios where°Cf. the serpent-pillars found in the old Roman provinces ofEurope (Frazer, Pausanias, ii. 49, V- 478 seq.). For the Kourétes,the fish and serpent-like peoples struck down by Zeus or Apollo, seeHarrison, Annual of Brit. School at Athens, xv. 308 sqq.° In popular Macedonian lore the lightning or thunder is the enemyof the serpent-dragon (G. F. Abbott, Macedonian Folklore, 261;cf. also Schwartz, 150 sqq., W. R. Smith, 175, n. 1; Winternitz, 45).11 W. M. Ramsay, op. cit. i. 86 seq.; cf. Gutschmid, Rhein. Mus.(1864). pp- 393 Sqn"
F er usson, p. 29, n. 2 (see, however, Frazer, Golden Bough, rix.323 seqg. For analogous traditions, see F ergusson, 32.1” See ANTICHRIST; DEVIL; DRAGON.,
1* See further Frazer, Kingship, 184-192; Schwartz, 73 seq.;Hocker, Deutscher Volksglaube (Gtittingen, 1853), p. 231. Similarl,food is offered to the snake of dough in the Punjab festival alreadymentioned (note 2 above).
15 The festival is described (as seen in 1906) by Marian C. Harrison,Folklore, xviii. (1907), 187 sqq., A combination of a cult of thehouse-snake with that of the (Christian) saint of the master of thehouse is said to prevail in modern Greece (J. C. Lawson, ModernGreek Religion, 1910, p. 260).
