Babylonian-Assyrian Birth-Omens and Their Cultural Significance Part 6

In thus removing, however, what had been one of the props of the study of Human Physiognomy, Lavater shook the foundation of the study itself. With the advent of modern medicine, the study of Physiognomy was dethroned from the place that it had so long occupied and was relegated to the pseudo-sciences--an interesting and in many respects a suggestive intellectual discipline, but not a science. As a recent writer tersely puts it 'The physiognomical feeling and sensation will never die out among people, for the roots lie deep in human nature. It is erroneous, however, to attempt to construct a science out of it'[162].

The thought, however, of endeavoring to determine the character of an individual by a study of the peculiarities and striking indications of his features would never have arisen, but for the antecedent beliefs that gave to the observation of birth-omens so prominent a place among methods of divination. Corresponding to the emphasis laid upon the individual factor when Babylonian-a.s.syrian Astrology pa.s.sed to the Greeks and which led to 'Genethlialogy' or the casting of the individual horoscope as the chief phase of astrology, in contradistinction to the exclusive bearing of astrology in its native haunt on the general welfare[163], the Babylonian-a.s.syrian system of divination through the study of birth-omens received an individualistic aspect upon pa.s.sing to the Greeks and Romans, by leading to the study of human features as a means of determining the character of an individual; and with the character also the prognostication of the fate in store for him during his earthly career. In other words, the rise of the study of Human Physiognomy finds a natural explanation, if we a.s.sume that it takes its rise from a system of divination based on the observation of peculiarities noted at the time of birth. It was natural when divination methods were employed to forecast the future of the individual, that the thought should arise of a close relations.h.i.+p between the features of an individual and his personality, which would include the powers and qualities bestowed on him, and which determine his actions and the experiences he will encounter. The fact that in this pseudo-science of Physiognomy, the comparison between man and animals played so significant a part among Greek and Roman Physiognomists and through them among the scientists of Europe till almost to the threshold of the modern movement in science, adds an additional force to the thesis here set forth. Such a method of determining the traits possessed by an individual, and which was the keynote of Human Physiognomy till the days of Lavater, would not have maintained so strong a hold on thinkers and on the ma.s.ses had it arisen in connection with the study itself. It was =embodied= into the study of Human Physiognomy as an integral part of it, because it represented an =established= tradition.

The Babylonian-a.s.syrian birth-omens in which this very comparison between man and animals forms so important a factor furnish the natural conditions for the rise of the tradition, while the long range of time covered by the Babylonian-a.s.syrian birth-omens supply the second factor needed to account for the persistency of the tradition after it had pa.s.sed beyond the confines within which it arose.

VII

Now in order to justify the proposition that the study of Human Physiognomy, as developed among the Greeks and Romans and as pa.s.sed on to others with its insistence on the fancied resemblance between man and animals as a leading and indeed as a fundamental factor, is to be directly carried back to the birth-omens of Babylonia and a.s.syria, we ought to be able to establish that among Greeks and Romans the abnormalities observed at the birth of infants and of the young of animals were really regarded as omens, and that such omens show a sufficient affinity to what we find among Babylonians and a.s.syrians to warrant the conclusion that, just as Hepatoscopy and Astrology came to the Greeks and Romans through influences emanating from the Euphrates Valley, so also the third large division of divination methods may be traced to the same source. Let us first take up the Romans for which the material at our disposal is so much more abundant.

Julius Obsequens, a writer whose exact date has not yet been determined, collected in his famous =Liber de Prodigiis=[164] all the omens that had been noted during a certain period of Roman history. He enumerates in all 72 covering the years 55 to 132 A. D. and the list itself is an instructive commentary on the attention that was paid to 'signs' of all kinds among the Romans as an index of the will and the intention of the G.o.ds. We find references to such phenomena as a rain of stones,--presumably hail stones--of oil, blood and milk--apparently allusions to volcanic eruptions, disguised in somewhat fanciful language--of the sun seen at night--perhaps a description of an eclipse when to a frightened populace it might appear as though night had suddenly set in--of blood appearing in rivers and of milk in lakes--no doubt a pollution of some kind due perhaps to ma.s.ses of earth or to glacial deposits pouring into the river--to burning torches in the heavens--probably comets with long tails--and more the like, all indicative of the unbridled play of popular fancy and showing that among the Romans, as among Babylonians and a.s.syrians, all unusual occurrences were looked upon as omens--portending some unusual happenings. Now among the 72 signs of Julius Obsequens there are quite a number of actual birth-omens, the character of which is so close to what we find in the collections of the =baru= priests as to show a practical ident.i.ty in the points of view. So we are told of several instances of a mule (supposed to be sterile) giving birth to a young (-- 65), in one case even to triplets (-- 15), in another to a young with five feet (-- 27). For the year 83 he records among various remarkable occurrences all regarded as omens, the birth of a colt with five feet (-- 24); two years in succession a two-headed calf (-- 31-32). Very much as in the Babylonian-a.s.syrian collections we read (-- 14) of a sow giving birth to a young with the hands and feet of a man. Among human monstrosities, our author records the case of a boy with three feet and one hand (-- 20), with one hand (-- 52), a boy with a closed a.n.u.s (-- 26, 40), with four feet, four eyes and four ears and with double genital members (-- 25). Several instances are given of androgynous infants (-- 22, 32 and 36). Twins born at Nursia in the year 100 are described as follows, 'the girl with all parts intact, the boy with the upper part of the belly open, revealing the intestines[165], the a.n.u.s closed, and speaking as he expired' (-- 40). The talking infant is a not infrequent phenomenon[166]. In the following year the birth of a boy who said 'ave' is recorded (-- 41). Again, as in the collections of the =baru= priests[167], we read (-- 57) of a woman giving birth to a serpent.

To these birth-omens further examples can be added from that inexhaustible storehouse of encyclopaedic knowledge, the Natural History of Pliny the Younger who, among other things, tells us (Hist. Nat. VII 3) of a woman Alcippa who gave birth to a child with the head of an elephant[168].

Valerius Maximus in his =de Dictis Factisque Memorabilibus= devotes a chapter to =Prodigia=[169] of the same miscellaneous character as the collection of Julius Obsequens--many in fact identical--among which by the side of rivers flowing with blood, talking oxen who utter words of warning[170], rain of stones, mysterious voices, we also find birth-omens such as the speaking infant and the child with an elephant's head[171].

Suetonius[172] tells us that Caesar's horse had human feet and that the Haruspices--the Etruscan augurs--declared it to be an omen that the world would one day belong to Caesar. We see, therefore, that among the Romans birth-omens were regarded from the same point of view as among the Babylonians and a.s.syrians and that the interpretation of the omens was the concern of a special cla.s.s who acted as diviners. Now the question may properly be put at this juncture, whether we are in a position to trace the actual interpretation of birth-omens among the Romans back to the Babylonian-a.s.syrian =baru=-priests? To this question, I think an affirmative answer may unhesitatingly be given. We have in the first place the testimony of Cicero[173], as well as other writers[174] that the Etruscans who are described as skilled in all kinds of divination were especially versed in the interpretation of malformations among infants and among the young of animals. Cicero emphasizes more particularly by the side of birth-omens, divination through the sacrificial animal and through phenomenen in the heavens, thus giving us the same three cla.s.ses that we find among Babylonians and a.s.syrians. Since Hepatoscopy and Astrology among Greeks and Romans can be traced back directly to Babylonia and a.s.syria[175], the presumption is in favor of the thesis that the Etruscan augurs derived their birth-omens also from the same source. The character of the specimens that we have of the Etruscan interpretations of birth-omens strengthens this presumption. So, e. g., Cicero preserves the wording of such a birth-omen[176] which presents a perfect parallel to what we find in the collections of the Babylonian-a.s.syrian =baru= priests, to wit, that if a woman gives birth to a lion, it is an indication that the state will be vanquished by an enemy. If we compare with this a statement in a Babylonian-a.s.syrian text dealing with birth-omens[177], vis.:

'If a woman gives birth to a lion, that city will be taken, the king will be imprisoned',

it will be admitted that the coincidence is too close to be accidental.

The phraseology, resting upon the resemblance between man and animals, is identical. The comparison of an infant to a lion, as of a new-born lamb to a lion is characteristic of the Babylonian-a.s.syrian divination texts and even the form of the omen, stating that the woman actually gave birth to a lion is the same in both while the basis of interpretation--the lion pointing to an exercise of strength--is likewise identical. Ordinarily the resemblance of the feature of an infant to that of a lion points to increased power on the part of the king of the country, but in the specific case, the omen is unfavorable also in the Babylonian text. It is the enemy who will develop power, so that the agreement between the Babylonian and Etruscan omen extends even to the exceptional character of the interpretation in this particular instance.

In the same pa.s.sage[178], Cicero refers to the two-fold interpretation given for the case of a girl born with two heads, one that there will be revolt among the people, the other that the marriage tie will be broken.

We thus have two interpretations, one bearing on the public weal, the other on private affairs, corresponding to the frequent combination of 'official' and 'unofficial' interpretations in the collections of the =baru=-priests[179]. The specific interpretations are again of the same character as we find in the Babylonian-a.s.syrian texts, 'revolt'[180] being in fact one of the most common, while the other corresponds to the phrase 'no unity among man and wife' found in the texts above discussed[181]. It so happens that in the case of the birth of a two-headed girl we have both the 'official' and the 'unofficial' interpretation, namely, 'No union between man and wife and diminution of the land'[182]--forming a really remarkable parallel to the Etruscan omen.

Further testimony to the parallelism between Etruscan and Babylonian-a.s.syrian methods of divination in the case of birth-omens is born by an interesting pa.s.sage in the Annals of Tacitus (XV, 47) that two-headed children or two-headed young of animals were interpreted by the Haruspices as pointing to an approaching change of dynasty and to the appearance of a weak ruler. Again, therefore, prognostications that present a complete parallel to what we find in the Babylonian-a.s.syrian texts[183].

Macrobius[184] preserves an Etruscan interpretation of a birth-omen relating to the color of newly born lambs. A purple or golden color of the lamb points to good luck. This 'purple' color corresponds to the term =samu= frequently occurring in Babylonian-a.s.syrian omen texts and which is generally rendered 'dark red'[185]. In the collections of the =baru=-priests, many references are found to the colors of the young animals and among these we have as a complete parallel to the statement in Macrobius the following[186]:

[If an ewe] gives birth to a young of dark-red color,--good fortune[187].

Lastly, the terms used to describe all kinds of malformations--=monstra= and =prodigia=[188], i. e., phenomena that 'point' to something show a parallel conception to the Babylonian-a.s.syrian viewpoint that abnormality in the case of the young of animals and of infants are primarily =signs= sent to indicate unusual events that would shortly happen.

That the Greeks also attached an importance to malformations, may be concluded from Aristotle's protest[189] against the supposition that a woman can give birth to an infant with the features of some animal[190], or that an animal can give birth to a young with human features. Such resemblances, he a.s.serts, are merely superficial and he endeavors to account for them as for all malformations in a scientific manner, as due to an insufficient control of the fructifying matter which prevents a normal development of the embryo. While Aristotle does not directly refer to the belief that malformations and monstrosities were looked upon by Greeks as omens, the emphatic manner in which he states that abnormalities cannot be against nature but only against the ordinary course of nature[191] indicates that he is polemicizing against a view which looked upon such anomalies as contrary to nature, and presumably regarded them, therefore, from the same point of view as did the Babylonians and Etruscans. We have a direct proof for this view however, in Valerius Maximus, who includes in his list of =prodigia= birth-omens recorded among the Greeks, such as a mare giving birth to a hare at the time that Xerxes was planning his invasion of Greece which was regarded as an omen of the coming event[192], or again an infant with malformation of the mouth[193].

Herodotus[194] records as another sign at the time of Xerxes' contemplated invasion of Greece a mule giving birth to a chicken with double genital organs, male and female, which is clearly again a birth omen. A further proof is furnished in a pa.s.sage in Aelian[195], which reports that an ewe in the herd of Nikippos gave birth to a lion and that this was regarded as an omen prognosticating that Nikippos, who at the time was a simple citizen, would become the ruler of the island. It will be recalled that this birth-omen--the ewe giving birth to a lion--is not only of special frequency, in the omen series of Babylonia and a.s.syria[196], but is part of the conventional divinatory phraseology of these texts, while the interpretation based on the a.s.sociation of the lion with power forms a complete and verbal parallel to the system devised by the =baru=-priests.

The fact that the birth-omen is reported as occurring at Cos is rather interesting, because it was there that Berosus, who brought Babylonian Astrology to the Greeks, settled and opened his school for instruction in the divinatory methods of the =baru=-priests. We are, therefore, justified in looking upon this circ.u.mstance as a link connecting birth-omens among Greek settlements with influences, emanating directly from the civilization of the Euphrates Valley. As another proof of the spread of Babylonian-a.s.syrian divination in other parts of the ancient world, we may point to the story reported by Herodotus[197] of a concubine of King Meles of Sardis who gave birth to a lion, and of the tale found in Cicero as well as in Herodotus[198], of the speaking infant of king Croesus of Lydia which was interpreted as an omen of the coming destruction of the kingdom and of the royal house. Here, again, we find (a) the familiar phraseology resting upon the supposed resemblance between man and animals and (b) the agreement in the interpretation of the anomaly of an infant capable of speaking--a birth-omen of particularly ominous significance[199]. Bearing in mind the discovery of clay models of livers with inscriptions revealing the terminology of Babylonian-a.s.syrian Hepatoscopy in the Hitt.i.te centre Boghaz-Kewi[200] and which definitely establishes the spread of this division of Babylonian-a.s.syrian Divination to Asia Minor, it is quite in keeping with what we would have a right to expect, to come across traces of Babylonian-a.s.syrian birth-omens in this same general region. That the Etruscans are to be traced back to Asia Minor is a thesis that is now so generally accepted as to justify us in regarding it as definitely established[201]. Hepatoscopy and Birth-omens thus followed the same course in pa.s.sing from the distant East to the West. We may sum up our thesis in the general statement that Babylonian divination made its way from Babylonia to a.s.syria, subsequently spread to Asia Minor and through the mediation of Hitt.i.tes and Etruscans came to the Greeks and Romans[202]. The same is the case with Astrology so far as the Romans were concerned, for whom the Etruscans again represent the mediators, while the Greeks appear to have obtained their knowledge of Babylonian-a.s.syrian Astrology through the direct contact between Greece and Euphratean culture, leading to a mutual exchange of views and customs.

VIII

There is still another aspect of the subject of Babylonian-a.s.syrian Birth-omens to which attention should be directed, and which will further ill.u.s.trate the cultural significance of the views that gave rise to this extensive subdivision of Babylonian-a.s.syrian divination. We have in the course of our investigations noted the tendency in the collections of the =baru=-priests to allow a free scope to the reins of fancy, which led to the amplification of entries of actual occurrences by adding entries of abnormalities that do not occur. In order to be prepared for all contingencies, the priests, as we saw, extended the scope of birth-omens in all directions, through entries for an ascending scale of multiple births which went far beyond the remotest possibility, through equally extravagant entries of the number of excess organs or of excess parts of the body, and through the most fanciful combinations of the features, aspects and parts of various animals in the case of new-born infants and the young of animals. The omission of the preposition 'like'[203] in the case of these entries obscured the starting-point for such comparisons, and it was natural for the idea of an ewe =actually= giving birth to a lion, or for a woman to some animal or the other--a lion, dog, fox, etc.--to take root[204]. Strange as this may seem to us, yet if we bear in mind the ignorance of people in the ancient world as to the origin and course of pregnancy and the general lack of knowledge of the laws of nature, the dividing line between the possible and the impossible would be correspondingly faint. At all events, the transition from the abnormal to the belief in monstrosities that were quite out of the question and that represent the outcome of pure fancy would be more readily made. Indeed, through a combination of all the features involved in the entries of the =baru=-priests, we obtain a reasonable basis for the belief, widespread throughout the ancient Orient as well as in the Greek and Roman world and existing up to the threshhold of modern science, in all kinds of monstrous beings which find their reflex in the fabulous creatures of mythology, legend and folklore. In other words, the Babylonian-a.s.syrian birth-omens form the first chapter in the history of monsters. The very term =monstrum=, as already suggested, reflects the Babylonian-a.s.syrian point of view, as a being which is sent as a sign--'pointing' (monstrare) to some coming event. A =monstrum= is in fact a =demonstration= of the will or intent of a deity, which becomes definite through the interpretation put upon it. Perhaps this point will become a little clearer, if we consider some of the possibilities included in the Babylonian-a.s.syrian birth-omens. An ewe giving birth to a lamb with two or even more heads, or to a creature with some of the organs and parts of the body doubled and with some single is certainly a monstrosity; and it is only a small step from such monstrosities which fall within the category of the abnormally possible to supposed combinations of the parts or features of various animals in one being. We actually read in one of these texts[205] of an =isbu= or a young lamb having the head of a lion and the tail of a fox, or the head of a dog and the mouth of a lion, or the head of a mountain goat and the mouth of a lion; or in another text[206] of colts with heads or manes of lions, or with the claws of lions or feet of dogs or with the heads of dogs. It is only necessary to carry this fanciful combination a little further to reach the conception that led to picturing the Egyptian sphinxes or the Babylonian =edu= or =lama.s.su=[207]--the protecting spirits or demons guarding the entrances to palaces and temples, as having the head of a man, the body of a lion or bull; and in the case of the a.s.syrian sphinxes also the wings of an eagle. Similarly, in the case of infants we find actual monstrosities recorded as a child with a double face, four hands and four feet[208], or with the ear of a lion and the mouth of a bird. Here again the step is a small one to the a.s.sumption of hybrid beings as hippocentaurs--half man and half horse--or tritons and mermaids--half human, half fish--or satyrs and fawns or monsters like Cerberus with several heads.

It has commonly been held that the conception of such fabulous hybrid beings rested on a popular belief in a kind of primitive theory of evolution, according to which in an early stage creatures were produced in a mixed form and that gradually order was brought out of this chaotic stage of creation. Berosus[209] in his account of creation according to Babylonian traditions voices this theory, and gives a description of the 'mixed' creatures that marked this earliest period of time, "men with double wings, some with four wings and two faces, some with one body but two heads and having both male and female organs, others with goat's legs and horns, with horses feet, the hind parts of the body like a horse, in front like a man, (i. e., hippocentaurs). There were also bulls with human heads, dogs with four bodies and fish tails, horses with the head of dogs, men and other creatures with heads and bodies of horses but tails of fishes, and various other creatures with the forms of all kinds of animals ... all kinds of marvellous hybrid beings". The description, which is confirmed in part by the Marduk Epic or the 'Babylon' version of creation where we encounter 'scorpion men', 'fish-men', 'goat-fish', dragons and other monstrous beings[210] as the brood of Tiamat the symbol of primaeval chaos, reads like an extract from the birth-omens in the Babylonian-a.s.syrian handbooks of divination. As a matter of fact, many of the hybrid beings described by Berosus can be parallelled in those parts of the collections that have been published[211].

My thesis, therefore, is that the birth-omens gave rise to the belief in all kinds of monstrous and fabulous beings. The resemblances between men and animals, as well as between an animal of one species with that of another, led to the supposition that all manner of hybrid beings =could= be produced in nature. The fanciful combinations in the collections of the =baru=-priests, in part reflecting popular fancies, in part 'academical'

exercises of the fancies of the priests, formed the basis and starting-point for the theory that at the beginning of time, pictured as a condition of chaos and confusion, such hybrid beings represented the norm, while with the subst.i.tution of law and order for chaos and confusion, their occurrence was exceptional and portended some approaching deviation from the normal state of affairs. It is not unusual in the history of religious and of popular beliefs to find fancy and fanciful resemblances leading to the belief in the reality. Once the thought suggested by the manifold abnormalities occurring in the young of domestic animals and among infants firmly rooted, there was no limit to the course of unbridled fancy in this direction. Adding to this the practical importance attached to birth-omens, what would be more natural than that with the development and spread of systems of divination devised to interpret the strange phenomena observed at birth, the belief in all kinds of monsters and monstrosities should likewise have been developed and should have spread with the extending influence of Babylonian-a.s.syrian divination.

Babylonian literature furnishes many examples of the persistency of such beliefs. It is sufficient to refer (a) to the gigantic scorpion-men who keep guard at the gate of the sun in the mountain Mau and who are described in the Gilgamesh epic[212] as 'terrible', whose very aspect is death, (b) to Engidu, the companion of Gilgamesh, who is pictured as a man with the body of a bull, and the horns of a bison[213], (c) to the monster Tiamat in the creation tale pictured in art with the mouth and foreclaws of a lion, wings and hind-feet of an eagle[214], or as a monstrous dragon with the head of a serpent, fore feet of a panther, hind talons of an eagle, or again described as a serpent of seven heads[215], and (d) to the 'mixed' creatures--man, bull or lion and eagle combined--above referred to and that appear in such various forms in Babylonian and a.s.syrian art[216], and reappear as sphinxes in Hitt.i.te[217] and Egyptian art. The Hippocentaur in various forms also appears in the Babylonian art of the Ca.s.site period[218].

If we are correct in tracing the spread of Babylonian-a.s.syrian birth-omens to the peoples of Asia Minor and thence to the Greeks and Romans, and in a.s.sociating the belief in all kinds of monstrous and fabulous beings with these birth-omens and as a direct outcome of the fanciful combinations embodied in the collections of the =baru=-priests, the spread of this belief would accompany the extension of the sphere of influence of Babylonian-a.s.syrian divination and of Euphratean culture in general. The thesis here proposed would, therefore, carry with it the a.s.sumption that the fabulous creatures of Greek and Roman mythology, as well as the wide spread belief in monstrosities of all kinds found in Greek and Roman writers, and which belief through the influence of Greek and Roman ideas was carried down to the middle ages and up to our own days, reverts in the last instance to the Babylonian-a.s.syrian birth-omens.

IX

The thesis that the fabulous figures of Greek mythology were suggested by malformations was set forth some twelve years ago by Prof. Friedrich Schatz in a monograph on '_Die griechischen Gotter und die menschlichen Migeburten_' (Wiesbaden 1901), in which he endeavored to show that the conceptions of such beings as the Cyclops, Harpies, Centaurs and Sirens were merely the fanciful elaborations of the impression made by actually occurring abnormal phenomena in the case of infants. The cyclops (9 seq.

with ill.u.s.trations) was suggested by the child born with one eye[219], the siren (11 seq. with ill.u.s.tration) by the abnormal but actually occurring phenomenon of a child born with the feet united[220]. A double headed G.o.d like Ja.n.u.s (12 seq.) was suggested by the monstrosity of a child with two heads and even such a tale as that of the head of the Gorgon, Schaatz believes is based (24 seq. with ill.u.s.trations) or, at all events, suggested by the fact that a woman gave birth to an undeveloped embryo which suggests a human head[221]. The three heads of Cerberus, Diana of the many b.r.e.a.s.t.s and even harpies are similarly explained as suggested by malformations or by excess parts or organs. Having reached my conclusions long before I learned of Dr. Schaatz's monograph, I was naturally glad to find that the idea had occurred to some one who had approached the subject from an entirely different point of view and without reference to birth-omens. I would not go so far as Dr. Schaatz in the attempt to trace back =all= the fabulous creatures of mythology, to certain specific malformations. Indeed some of his combinations are almost as fanciful as the creatures themselves, e. g., his endeavor to explain the Prometheus myth as suggested by 'extopy of the liver' (36), whereas the tale clearly rests upon the old theory of the liver as the seat of the life[222], but the main thought that the idea of monstrous beings was suggested by actual malformations =plus= the factor of unbridled fancy is, I venture to think, correct. We must, of course, add to human malformations the many abnormal phenomena occurring in the young of animals in which the determining factor is again the =significance= attached to all kinds of malformation among human beings and animals as birth-omens. This factor must be taken as our point of departure; it furnishes a reason not merely for the rise of the belief in all kinds of fabulous creatures but also for the elaboration and the persistency of the belief and for its embodiment in the religious thought of peoples. It is because the malformation is an omen that it leads to further beliefs and fancies. The direct a.s.sociation of the belief in fabulous creatures with birth-omens in Babylonia and a.s.syria lends a presumption in favor of the same a.s.sociation among the Greeks. If, therefore, we can trace the attachment to birth-omens among Greeks and Romans to the Euphrates Valley, we will have found a reasonable explanation for the part played by monsters and fabulous beings in the mythology and the religion of the Greeks and Romans. Further than this, it is not necessary to go. It is not essential to the establishment of the thesis to trace =all= the fabulous beings of cla.s.sical mythology to actual malformations. The factor of fancy would lead to the extension of the sphere far beyond the original boundaries; nor is it necessary to find parallels to all the creatures of Greek and Roman mythology in Babylonian and a.s.syrian literature or art in order to justify the dependence of the former upon Babylonian-a.s.syrian birth-omens. No doubt the Greeks, more particularly, developed the conception in their own way, adding other features to it, just as they modified Babylonian-a.s.syrian astrology in adapting it to their environment and their way of thinking, and just as the Etruscans and Romans modified the Babylonian-a.s.syrian hepatoscopy[223]. All that is claimed here is that the =conception= of monstrous and fabulous beings is a direct outcome of the importance attached to Birth-omens; and since the Babylonians and a.s.syrians are the only people who developed an elaborate system of divination in which the interpretation of birth-omens const.i.tuted an important division, and which spread with the extension of Euphratean culture to Asia Minor and thence to Greece and Rome, I claim that the ultimate source of the belief itself is to be sought in the Euphrates Valley.

Can we trace the conception likewise to the distant East? Dr. Bab in an interesting essay on '_Geschlechtsleben, Geburt und Migeburten_' in the _Zeitschr. fur Ethnologie_[224] adopts the thesis of Dr. Schaatz and applies it to account for the frequent representation of G.o.ds in India with excess organs or an excess number of parts of the body--G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses with many heads, with three or four eyes, various b.r.e.a.s.t.s and more the like. The same would of course apply to representations of Chinese G.o.ds and demons. Bab's paper is elaborately ill.u.s.trated and the juxtaposition of actual malformations with the representation of G.o.ds and demons in India and China leaves no doubt of at least a partial dependence of these artistic fancies upon actual occurrences in nature[225]. Again, however, a warning is in order not to carry the thesis too far; nor is it possible to furnish definite proofs for the spread of Babylonian-a.s.syrian systems of divination to the distant East, though we now have some evidence pointing to a spread in this direction of Babylonian-a.s.syrian astrology[226] and perhaps also of Babylonian-a.s.syrian hepatoscopy[227].

In a general way, we are also justified in seeking for an early connection--commercial, artistic and social--between the Euphrates Valley and distant India and China, but for the present we must rest content with the a.s.sertion of the possibility that Babylonian-a.s.syrian birth-omens, and with this system of divination also the conception of and belief in hybrid monsters and fabulous creatures spread eastwards as well as westwards.

How stands the case with Egypt, where we find sphinxes that represent a combination of man and animal and where we encounter numerous G.o.ds composed of human bodies with the heads of animals? The question of foreign influences in the earlier art of Egypt is one that has as yet scarcely been touched, and we are equally at sea as to the possibility of very early connections between the Euphratean culture and that which arose in the valley of the Nile. The fact that the oldest pyramid--that of King Zoser at Sakkarah--is formed of a succession of terraces[228] like the =zikkurats= or stage-towers of Babylonia and moreover is of brick was regarded by Ihering[229] as an evidence of an influence exerted by Babylonia upon Egypt. An isolated phenomenon is too slender a thread on which to hang a weighty theory, and the step pyramid of Zoser can be explained as a transition from a form of the =mastaba= to the genuine pyramid, without recourse to foreign models. All attempts to find a connection between the Egyptian hieroglyphics and the oldest hieroglyphics forms from which the Babylonian cuneiform script developed have likewise ended in negative results and the same is to be said of endeavors to find any direct connection between Babylonian and Egyptian beliefs and rites and myths and despite certain rather striking points of resemblance[230].

And yet it is difficult to suppress the impression one receives that much in Egyptian art and in the Egyptian religion suggests early outside influences. With Babylonia and Egypt in more or less close touch as far back at least as 1700 B. C., and with Asiatic entanglements reverting to a still earlier period, the possibility of some connection between the Egyptian forms of the sphinx--the crouching lion with the human head, the falcon-headed and ram-headed sphinxes--and the combinations of the human face with bulls and lions in Babylonian art to which the a.s.syrians added the wings, cannot be summarily set aside. The question as to the age of the sphinx at Gizeh--the oldest of all--is still in abeyance. Maspero ascribes it to the early Memphite art[231], Spiegelberg to the middle kingdom[232], while others bring it down to the 18th dynasty. If we accept Spiegelberg's date we will be close to the period when by general consent the Mediterranean culture--including therefore Syria, Palestine and Western Asia in general--exercised a decided influence on Egypt. It is during the time of the new kingdom that the sphinxes become frequent, as it is at this period that the tendency to represent the G.o.ds as a combination of the human and animal form becomes prominent and reaches its highest form of expression.

Now, to be sure, we have not as yet come across any traces of Babylonian-a.s.syrian divination in any of its forms in Egypt, but that may be due to the rationalistic character of the Egyptian religion in the 'official' form revealed by the monuments and the literature which, while full of rites and ceremonials connected so largely with the cult of the dead, is yet relatively free of magic or divination. It is possible, however, that in the unofficial popular customs divination may have played a greater part than we suspect. Be this as it may, the conception of monstrous beings may have found its way into Egypt even without the transfer of the practice of interpreting birth-omens. The thesis of outside influences to account for the Egyptian sphinxes and for the combination of the human and animal form as a means of representing G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, is on the whole more plausible than to a.s.sume that Babylonians and Egyptians should have independently hit upon the idea of carving sphinxes to protect the entrances to temples and palaces.

Naturally, we must again be on our guard not to carry the theory too far.

The form given to the images of the G.o.ds by the Egyptians suggests the almost perfect blending of the human and animal, and as such is a distinct expression of the genius of Egyptian art. All that is claimed here is that the =thought= of reproducing hybrid and fabulous beings in art did not arise in Egypt without some outside influences. Resemblances between the human form and the features of animals may have suggested themselves to all peoples without any influence exerted by one on the other, but in order to take the further step, leading to the belief in the =actual= existence of beings in which the human and the animal are combined, the resemblances must have been fraught with some practical significance. This condition, I hold, is fulfilled if the resemblances--as well as all kinds of other abnormalities--are looked upon as =signs= sent for a specific purpose i. e. to point to some unusual happening that may be confidently expected. The monster in short presupposes what the word implies, that it is a 'sign'--an omen of some kind.

A warning may also not be out of place against connecting the belief in monsters and fabulous creatures with the mental processes that give rise to totemistic beliefs. In so far as totemism implies the descent of a clan or group from some animal, it rests in part upon the supposed resemblance between man and animals. Without this feature the thought of a descent of human beings from some animal would hardly have occurred to people, but this is only one factor involved. Ignorance as to processes of nature in bringing about a new life is an equally important factor; and there are others. But totemism does not involve the combination of the human and the animal form in one being. That combination belongs to an entirely different process of thought, though it also has as its starting-point the recognition of a resemblance between man and animals. The conception of hybrid beings is allied to that of human creatures or of animals who through defects or through an excess number of organs or of parts of the body represent striking deviations from the normal. Both cla.s.ses fall within the category of monsters, i. e., they are signs sent for a specific purpose. Descent from an animal totem, however, where the belief exists, is not looked upon as abnormal, but on the contrary as the rule.

Still a third direction taken by the impression made upon man through the recognition of a resemblance between him and certain species of the animal world is represented by the belief--so widespread--of the possibility of the change of the human form into the animal. References to such phenomena are not infrequent in Latin Literatures. Pliny[233] refers to several instances of women being transformed into men. Livy[234] also speaks of this phenomenon as a matter of common belief; and it is merely another phase of this same belief that we encounter in the famous Metamorphoses of Ovid where the G.o.ds take on the form of animals, Io being changed to a cow and back again to human form, Jupiter to a bull, Cadmus to a dragon, Medea to a fish, and so on through quite a long list. Circe by virtue of her powers can change men to swine, just as she transforms her rivals into trees. Apuleius' famous tale of the Golden a.s.s where the hero is changed into a talking a.s.s rests upon the same deep-rooted belief, which appears again in a modified form in the Jatakas or Birth-stories of India where Buddha takes on the form of all kinds of animals and which lead to the beast fables of Bidpai where animals are introduced at every turn who talk and act as men[235]. Even such a tale as that of Balaam's talking a.s.s would not have arisen without the antecedent belief in the possibility of a transformation of man to animals and the reverse. In fact the talking animal in all fairy tales rests in the last instance on a metamorphosis.

But this metamorphosis has nothing to do with hybrid creatures or monsters. The universal spread of totemistic beliefs preclude =a priori= a single centre as a starting-point for such beliefs; and the same in all probabilities holds good for the belief that men may be changed into animals and the reverse. In both, however, the factor of the resemblance between man and animals is undoubtedly involved. All that is claimed by my thesis is that the development of this recognition of a resemblance between man and animal in the direction which led to the belief in fabulous creatures and monsters, that is to say combinations of man and animal in one being, side by side with abnormalities through defective organs or parts of the body, or through an excess in the number of the organs or parts of the body is a.s.sociated, wherever it is found, with birth-omens; that is, with the observation of striking or peculiar phenomena observed at the time of birth in the case of infants or the young of animals and regarded as omens. =Monstra=, =prodigia=, =ostenta= and =portenta= to use the terms employed by Latin writers. All these terms convey the idea that such phenomena are signs sent by the G.o.ds as a means of indicating what the G.o.ds have in mind, or, to put it more generally, what the future has in store. This chain of ideas and conceptions and beliefs is restricted to culture circles which have been subject to common influences.

X

The history of monsters forms an interesting division in the annals of mankind, and I should like in conclusion to call attention to the persistency of this belief down to the threshhold almost of our own days.

Among the Romans up to the latest period the old law of either burning the monsters or of throwing them into the sea was generally carried out[236].

This was done on the supposition that the monster was an ill omen foreboding evil and which was sent as a punishment. Plutarch tells a story[237] which despite the skeptical att.i.tude a.s.sumed by the narrator, shows that the same point of view prevailed among the Greeks. From the Greeks and Romans the belief in all kinds of monsters and the view that they were signs of divine anger was handed down to Christian Europe.

Precisely as among the Babylonians and a.s.syrians, no distinction was drawn between monstrosities that actually occurred--such as infants, or the young of animals with two heads, or with only one eye, or with no nose, or an otherwise defective face, or with an excess number of hands or feet in the case of children, or an excess number of feet in the case of animals and the like[238]--and such as are purely imaginary, or in which the imagination plays at least a leading factor.

A learned Jesuit, Conrad Lycosthenes, published an elaborate work in 1557 under the t.i.tle =Prodigiorum ac Ostentorum Chronicon= (Basel) in which he put together all miracles, miraculous happenings and strange phenomena from the creation of the world down to his days. This is only one of a number of compilations of this character, the significant feature of which is the jumbling together into one cla.s.s, of miracles, of unusual phenomena in the heavens and on earth, of the birth of malformations--human or animal--including monstrosities and fanciful hybrid creatures,--all being viewed as signs sent by a divine power. Lycosthenes includes in his compilation the accounts of ancient writers and later travellers of peoples of remarkable formation such as the Scipodes and Monomeri (10) of whom Pliny[239] reports that they have only one foot, of people who have the heads of dogs (11), of others living in Western Ethiopia (8) who have four eyes, of the Ipopodes in Asia (8) who have the feet of horses, and of the Scythians (ib.) who have only one eye, or of people have no heads, of others with eyes, nose and mouth on the breast (9), or who have six arms, (14) or who are provided with hoofs and horns, or of women (13) who lay their young in the form of eggs.

Lycosthenes' work is elaborately ill.u.s.trated and so he portrays for us these strange beings, as well as men with the heads of dogs (11), hippocentaurs (12), men with six arms (14), baldheaded women with beards, and people in the region of the North Sea who have ears that cover the whole body (13), mermaids, tritons, satyrs, fauns (10, 28, 218, 311, 317) and harpies (31). The whole army of fabulous beings of mythology and folk-lore is brought before us[240], including the remarkable creature whom Gessner in his great work on Animals[241] describes as 'a virgin with human face, arms and hands, body of a dog, wings of a bird, claws of a lion and the tail of a dragon'. Naive credulity =alone= would be insufficient to account for such fancies, but if we start from the deep impression made by malformations of all kinds from the point of view of birth-omen divination, the exaggeration of such malformations through the play of the imagination would follow from the inherent fondness of human nature for the marvellous. A large part of Lycosthenes' work is taken up with the malformations and monstrosities mentioned in cla.s.sical writers--Pliny, Livy, Cicero, Valerius Maximus, Julius Obsequens, Aelian, etc. which he has collected with great patience. Pa.s.sing beyond cla.s.sical days, he is at equal pains to put together all records of unusual phenomena, adding generally the attendant circ.u.mstances or the events that followed, which the sign was regarded as portending. All kinds of monstrosities are described, together with the date and the place of their appearance. A lamb with a swine's head (136), born in Macedonia presaged the war with Phillip which soon thereafter broke out. A double-headed ox born in the year 573 B. C. (309) presaged the defeat of the Persians. A child without arms (316) and the tail of a fish instead of legs, born in Thrace in 601 A. D., was ordered to be killed. In 854 A. D. a boy attached to a dog was born (352, see the ill.u.s.tration). This happened in the days of Lotharius Caesar, duke of Saxony, who soon thereafter died. In 858 A.

D. (353) a monstrosity of mixed shape was born and all kinds of misfortunes followed. Twins united at the loins born in England in 1112 are brought into connection with a victory of King Boleslaus of Poland and the death of Waldrich, duke of Saxony. He carries his chronicle beyond 1543[242] in which year a human monstrosity was born at Cracow, with flames starting out of the eyes, mouth and nose, with horns on its head, with the tail of a dog, with faces of apes on its breast and legs, with the eyes of a cat and with claws. It lived for four hours, cried 'Vigilate, Dominus Deus vester adventat' and expired. The point of view throughout is the time-honored one that the monstrosity is a =monstrum=--a sign sent by an angered deity, just as on the other hand as a trace of the pristine ignorance of the processes of nature, the belief continued to prevail that such monstrosities were due to the intercourse of women with demons--either wilfully accomplished by the woman, or without her knowledge. Martin in his _Histoire des Monstres_ devotes an entire chapter[243] to ill.u.s.trations of this belief, which is advocated as late as the year 1836 by Goerres[244], the Professor of Philosophy at the Munich University, and even as late as the year 1864 by Delaporte in a book on the devil[245]. Such a belief which involves the possibility of pregnancy without the ordinary s.e.xual intercourse and which has left its traces far and wide[246] in the religious history of mankind must have acted as a powerful agent in maintaining also the belief in all kinds of monstrosities that could never have occurred. The demons naturally could do anything, and thus a very simple theory was evolved to account for such monstrosities and which supplemented the older one[247] that accounted for the simpler hybrid beings as due to the intercourse of a human being with an animal. The cooperation of the demons, moreover, was a natural correlative to the belief that deviations from the normal course of things were omens. Even Christian theology found no difficulty in a.s.suming that G.o.d permitted a demon to exercise his power over those who had through sin forfeited the Divine protection, with the result that in many cases the unfortunate mother was brought before a tribunal and not infrequently suffered death for the sin of intercourse with some demon. Martin's work, above referred to, also furnishes abundant evidence of the persistency both of the belief in monsters and of their being regarded as omens even in the scientific world down to a very late date. He tells the story[248]

of the birth of twins, united at the breast, in the year 1569. The royal physician Jacques Roy was commissioned to make an autopsy and to report on the result. He closes his report with a poem, glorifying the Catholic Church and vigorously denouncing the Protestant movement. More than this, he concludes from the fact that one of the twins received the baptismal rite before dying, while the other died without baptism that the Catholic church would survive the Hugenot heresy. In 1605 twins united at the umbilic.u.m were born in Paris, and despite the fact that the Faculty of Medicine of Paris presented a scientific report, accounting for the monstrosity through the fact that 'the s.e.m.e.n was too plentiful for one body and two small for two', a chronicler in embodying the report of the physicians in his account presents his view that the monstrosity was a symbol of the wickedness of Papism and of Mohammedanism. Between 1539 and 1605 we have the Edict of Nantes which in rendering civil liberty to the Hugenots brought about a reversion of feeling in their favor. The tables are therefore turned, and the monstrosity is now a sign sent against the Catholic Church. The chronicler breaks out in rhyme as follows[249]:

"Je tiens que ces deux fronts, cette face jumelle, Sont deux religions, dont l'une est qui s'appelle Papisme, et son autheur est l'antechrist romain, De l'autre est Mahumet avec son Alcorain".

The persistency of the belief in monsters even in scientific or quasi-scientific circles and of regarding monsters as omens no doubt had much to do with the fact that a really scientific theory to account for such malformations as actually do occur was not put forth until the year 1826 when Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire in reporting to the French Academy of Medicine on a mummy found at Hermopolis[250] and which appeared to have been that of a human monstrosity, enunciated the view which led to the science of Teratology, as a branch of modern medicine[251].