If a woman gives birth, and the offspring cries in the womb, the land will encounter sickness.If a woman gives birth, and the offspring cries in the womb and it is distinctly heard, a powerful enemy will arise and overthrow the land, destruction will sweep the land, the enemy will destroy the precious possession, or the master’s house will be destroyed.If a woman gives birth to a lion, that city will be taken, the king will be captured.If a woman gives birth to a dog, the master of the house will die and that house will be destroyed, confusion, Nergal will destroy.If a woman gives birth to a pig, a woman will seize the throne.If a woman gives birth to an ox, the king of universal rule will prevail in the land.If a woman gives birth to an ass, the king of universal rule will prevail in the land.If a woman gives birth to a lamb, the ruler will be without a rival.If a woman gives birth to a Sâ[146], the ruler will be without a rival.If a woman gives birth to a serpent[147], I will surround the house of the master.If a woman gives birth to a dolphin (?)[148], the house of the [man will be enlarged ?].If a woman gives birth to a fish-being[149], the ruleof the king will prosper, the gods [will return to the land].If a woman gives birth to a bird[150],...
If a woman gives birth, and the offspring cries in the womb, the land will encounter sickness.
If a woman gives birth, and the offspring cries in the womb and it is distinctly heard, a powerful enemy will arise and overthrow the land, destruction will sweep the land, the enemy will destroy the precious possession, or the master’s house will be destroyed.
If a woman gives birth to a lion, that city will be taken, the king will be captured.
If a woman gives birth to a dog, the master of the house will die and that house will be destroyed, confusion, Nergal will destroy.
If a woman gives birth to a pig, a woman will seize the throne.
If a woman gives birth to an ox, the king of universal rule will prevail in the land.
If a woman gives birth to an ass, the king of universal rule will prevail in the land.
If a woman gives birth to a lamb, the ruler will be without a rival.
If a woman gives birth to a Sâ[146], the ruler will be without a rival.
If a woman gives birth to a serpent[147], I will surround the house of the master.
If a woman gives birth to a dolphin (?)[148], the house of the [man will be enlarged ?].
If a woman gives birth to a fish-being[149], the ruleof the king will prosper, the gods [will return to the land].
If a woman gives birth to a bird[150],...
These examples will suffice to show the part played by the supposed resemblance of a new-born infant with one animal or the other in the Babylonian-Assyrian birth-omens; nor is it difficult to see how the thought of such resemblances should arise, for, as a matter of fact, the shape of the head of an infant easily suggests that of a dog or a bird. The ear if unusually large might recall a donkey’s ear; a small eye, that of a pig, and a large one, that of a lion[151]. The association of ideas with the various animals no doubt suggests the interpretation in most cases, though in others the interpretation appears to be of a purely conventional type and as a rule favorable.
Now what does all this mean? Is there any larger significance in these elaborate collections of birth-omens? Do investigations of this character serve any purpose beyond finding out how foolish many millions of people were thousands of years ago, though to be sure it may be some satisfaction to ascertain for oneself that foolishness has so venerable an ancestry. Bouché-Leclercq says at the close of his introduction to his great work on Greek Astrology[152]that ‘it is not a waste of time to find out how other peoples wasted theirs’. But there would be small comfort even in such a reflection, if studies in the history of divination did not furnish a larger outlook on the development of human thought—if in short such studies did not have some important bearing on the cultural history of mankind. Let us see whether this is the case.
Such is the curious nature of man that his science starts with superstition. The intellectual effort involved in developing what to us at least must appear as a foolish and erroneous notion, nevertheless, results in some positive advantage. We often hear it said that medicine starts with religion, and this is true in the sense that the cure of disease was once closely bound up with the belief that all suffering was due to some demon or invisible spirit that had entered the body—a view that is after all not so far removed from the modern ‘germ’ theory holding for so many diseases, for the germs are practically invisible and their demoniac character will assuredly not be denied. The cure of a disease in primitive medicine consisted in driving the demon out of the body, for which again we might without much difficulty find an equivalent in modern medicinal methods. Incantations were supposed to have the power of frightening the demon or in some other way of inducing them to leave the body of the victim, but it was soon discovered that certain herbs and concoctions helped to this end—not that it was at first supposed that such herbs and concoctions were useful to the patient, but that they wereobnoxiousto the demons who preferred to leave their victims rather than endure the nasty and ill-smelling combinations that frequently form the medical prescriptions attached to the incantations[153]. What we would regard as medicinal remedies were originally given to the patient, with a view and in the hope of disgusting the demon that had caused the disease—a supplement therefore to the power attributed to the recitation of certain combinations of words, and all with a view to force the demons to release their hold on the sufferer by quitting his body. From such superstitious beginnings medicine, closely bound up with the prevailing religious beliefs, took its rise. In the same way, liver divination though as a practice it belongs to the period of primitive culture and rests on an asumption which from the modern scientific point of view is the height of absurdity, nevertheless, led to the study of anatomy and as a matterof fact, the observation of the liver for purposes of divination represents the beginnings of the study of anatomy[154]. Astrology led to astronomy, and in the same way the observation of birth-omens gave rise to another science or at least to a mental discipline that until quite recently was regarded as a science—namely, the study of human and animal physiognomy. The importance given to any and to all kinds of peculiarities in the case of the young of animals and in new-born infants naturally sharpened the powers of observation, and led people to carefully scrutinize and study the features of the new-born. The large part played in this scrutiny by the supposed resemblance of the features of an infant to those of some animal formed a natural starting point, from which it was not a very large step to the position that this supposed resemblance had a bearing on the child itself. In other words the birth-omens in so far as they referred to phenomena among infants had a double significance; they portended something of moment either to the general welfare or to the house in which the birth took place and also to the child.
It is certainly not accidental that in the study of Human Physiognomy as carried on among the Greeks and Romans as well as among mediaeval Arabic and Christian writers, the supposed resemblances of people to animals was one of the chief methods employed for determining the character of an individual. This phase of Human Physiognomy I venture to trace back directly to divination through birth-omens, which would by a natural process lead to the study of human features as a means of ascertaining the character of an individual. Among the Greeks, the great Plato[155]was supposed to approve of the theory that a man possesses to some extent the traits of the animal that he resembles; and it seems to be a kind of poetic justice that a philosopher holding so manifestly absurd a theory should himself, as willpresently appear, have been compared by a celebrated physiognomist of the 16thcentury to a dog—though to be sure to a dog of the finer type. Polemon and Adamantius many centuries after Plato are among the significant names of those who tried to work out the theory in the form of an elaborate science[156]. Aristotle who can generally be counted upon to have sane views on most subjects opposed this method of studying human character, though until a few decades ago a work on Human Physiognomy[157]based on the theory of a man’s possessing the traits of the animal that he resembles passed as a production of Aristotle. It is one of the many merits of modern scholarship to have removed this stigma from the prince of Greek philosophers. Aristotle, as a matter of fact, in a significant passage in hisde Generatione Animalium(IV, 54) denies the possibility of the crossing of an animal of one species with that of another, and adds that malformations can produceapparentsimilarities between animals of different species, but which are to be explained through the workings of natural laws. These laws condition deviations from the normal as well as all normal phenomena. Nothing in nature, Aristotle sums up, can becontra naturam. It would appear from passages like this that in Aristotle’s days the resemblances between an animal of one species and that of another, and the resemblance between man and animals had led to the belief of cross breeds to account for such resemblances, while monstrosities among animals and among men were looked upon as omens sent by the gods as a warning or as curses for crimes committed—a point of view that, as we shall see, is likewise to be traced back to Babylonian-Assyrian influences.
There were others besides Aristotle who opposed thecurrent views, but the curious thing is that even those who rejected the theory of a transition of one species to another still maintained that certain traits in an individual could be associated with and explained by features that they had in common with some animal or the other. Notable among these was Giovanni Porta, a most distinguished scholar of the 16thcentury, who while a believer in magic was also a scientific investigator whose researches proved of great value in developing a true theory of light and who among other achievements invented thecamera obscura. He wrote a work in Latin,de Humana Physiognomica(Sorrento, 1586) which he himself translated into Italian (Naples, 1598) and which subsequently appeared in French and German editions. It remained in fact the standard work on the subject up to the time of Lavater’s great work on Physiognomy at the end of the 18thcentury. Porta opposed Plato’s theory that a man has the traits of the animal that he resembles, on the ground that a man may have features suggestingvariousanimals. His forehead may recall that of a dog, while his mouth may be like the snout of a swine, and his ears may resemble those of an ass. In fact Porta maintains that no man has features all of which suggest a comparison withoneanimal only. Yet Porta is of the opinion that the resemblance between men and animals, which is self-evident, forms the basis for the study of human character, with this modification, however, which makes the theory even more complicated, that each feature,—the forehead, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the ears, the lips and even the eyebrows, and the color of hair of the head or the beard—betrays some characteristic. It is through the combination of all these features that the character is to be determined, but each feature is compared by Porta to the corresponding one of some animal and its significance set forth according to the idea associated with the animal. Porta’s treatise is, therefore, quite as largely taken up with comparisons between men and animals as are the treaties of other Physiognomists, only in more detailed fashion. Thus a long forehead or one not too flat or too even, suggested to Porta the character of a sagaciousdog and by way of illustration (p. 114 and 118)[158]places the portrait of a dog side by side with one traditionally supposed to be a likeness of Plato. Dante, so Porta tells us, also had such a dog forehead. A square forehead suggests that of a lion (115) and points to magnanimity, courage and prudence—provided, he adds, the rest of the face is in proportion; a high, rounded forehead (117) is compared with that of an ass, and is an indication of stupidity and imprudence. In the case of noses, comparisons are instituted with the beaks of ravens, eagles and roosters, with the noses of oxen, swine, dogs, apes and stags, and horses. Since the raven is an impudent and rapacious bird, he who is endowed by nature with a nose that curves from the forehead outward will also show these unpleasant qualities; on the other hand, if the nose is shaped like an eagle’s beak, the person will share the magnanimity and royal spirit of the bird of Jupiter. The illustration (150) shows the picture of the Emperor Sergius Galba, side by side with an eagle’s face. Cyrus and Artaxerxes, too, are said to have had noses of this fortunate shape; and by way of confirmation of the theory, Porta gives illustrations of the magnanimity of these and of other rulers who had a beak like that of an eagle. A nose broad in the middle and sloping inwards (154), suggesting that of an ox, indicates a lying and verbose individual; a thick nose (155) is pictured side by side with a swine’s head with the usual uncomplimentary traits associated with that animal. In this way and in most detailed fashion Porta takes up in succession the mouth, the ears, the eyes, the teeth, the lips, the hair and the face in general[159]. A very large and broad face is compared with that of an ox or ass (172 seq.) and indicates ignorance, stupidity, laziness and obstinacy; a very small face resembles that of a cat or an ape (174 seq.) and prognosticates timidity, shrewd servility and narrowness; a very fleshy faceis again compared with that of an ox (177); a very bony one with that of an ass, though Porta here as elsewhere is somewhat embarrassed by the variant opinions of his authorities Pseudo-Aristotle, Polemon and Adamantius and not infrequently has recourse to textual changes in order to solve difficulties. The doubt as to the reasonableness of the whole theory never appears, however, to have entered his mind, and he cheerfully proceeds with his comparisons in the course of which he introduces notable historical personages as illustrations. In this way Socrates is compared to a stag and because of his baldness is given a malignant, and, according to others, a lascivious nature (87); the Emperor Vitellius is likened to an owl (12); Actiolinus to a hunting dog because of the groove above his eyes (125); Plato, as we have seen, to a dog and Sergius Galba to an eagle, while the head of Alexander the Great, though only of medium size, is compared with that of a lion (72).
Such was the influence of Porta’s work that it remained the authority for the study of Human Physiognomy till towards the end of the 18thcentury when Lavater’s four volumes of “Physiognomical Fragments”[160]appeared with their wonderful illustrations, to which the profound impression made by the work was largely due. Lavater constantly refers to Porta, but one of his main objects is to controvert the thesis that the comparison of human features with those of animals should form the means of determining the trait indicated by the feature in question. Curiously enough in a preliminary outline of his system of Physiognomy[161], Lavater had included a chapter on the resemblance between man and animals, but by the time he came to work out his system he had changed his mind and henceforth opposed Porta’s view. To be sure, the grounds on which he does so are more of a sentimental than of a scientific character. Lavater—a clergyman and a believer in the special creation of man by the Divine Power (Physiognomische Fragmente II 192),—protests against a possible relationship between man and the animal world,declaring that to see animal features in the human face is to lower the dignity of mankind. Man created as God’s supreme achievement can have nothing to do with the animal creation which represents a lower order of being. Even Lavater does not go so far as to deny all resemblances between human features and those of animals. He admits and sympathizes and enlarges on them in several passages (II 192; IV 56); but he ascribes them to accident or to fancy, and declines to draw therefrom the conclusion that the individual who has some feature or a number of features that suggest those of some animal must, therefore, have the traits associated with the animal or the animals in question. It is rather strange that Lavater should not have hit upon therealobjection to Porta’s method which lies in the contradictions in which he necessarily involves himself by comparing the various features of an individual with various animals, the forehead with one animal, the eyes with another, the lips with a third and so on; and since the animals in question show entirely different and contradictory traits, it is manifestly impossible to reach any rational conclusions as to a man’s character by so absurd a method. However, although Lavater does not reveal the real weakness of the current theory of Human Physiognomy, yet he contributed to the overthrow of the theory itself which had reached the stage ofreductio ad absurdumthrough the modifications introduced by Porta. It often happens that an outlived theory is set aside through arguments that are in themselves insufficient to do so.
Through Lavater the study of Physiognomy was thrown back on the scrutiny of human features, and the determination of a man’s character by a direct method and without recourse to comparisons with the features of animals. 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 intellectualdiscipline, 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-Assyrian Astrology passed 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-Assyrian system of divination through the study of birth-omens received an individualistic aspect upon passing 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 assume 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 relationship 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 almostto 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 masses had it arisen in connection with the study itself. It wasembodiedinto the study of Human Physiognomy as an integral part of it, because it represented anestablishedtradition. The Babylonian-Assyrian 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-Assyrian birth-omens supply the second factor needed to account for the persistency of the tradition after it had passed beyond the confines within which it arose.
Now in order to justify the proposition that the study of Human Physiognomy, as developed among the Greeks and Romans and as passed 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 Assyria, 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 Assyrians 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 famousLiber deProdigiis[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 gods. 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 masses 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 Assyrians, 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 thebârûpriests as to show a practical identity 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-Assyrian 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 anus (§ 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 anus 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 thebârûpriests[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 hisde Dictis Factisque Memorabilibusdevotes a chapter toProdigia[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 Assyrians and that the interpretation of the omens was the concern of a special class who acted as diviners. Now the question may properly be put at thisjuncture, whether we are in a position to trace the actual interpretation of birth-omens among the Romans back to the Babylonian-Assyrianbârû-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 classes that we find among Babylonians and Assyrians. Since Hepatoscopy and Astrology among Greeks and Romans can be traced back directly to Babylonia and Assyria[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-Assyrianbârûpriests, 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-Assyrian 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’,
‘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-Assyrian divination texts and even the form of the omen, stating that the woman actuallygave 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 passage[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 thebârû-priests[179]. The specific interpretations are again of the same character as we find in the Babylonian-Assyrian 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-Assyrian methods of divination in the case of birth-omens is born by an interesting passage in the Annalsof 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-Assyrian 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 termsâmufrequently occurring in Babylonian-Assyrian omen texts and which is generally rendered ‘dark red’[185]. In the collections of thebârû-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].
[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—monstraandprodigia[188], i. e., phenomena that ‘point’ to something show a parallel conception to the Babylonian-Assyrian viewpoint that abnormality in the case ofthe young of animals and of infants are primarilysignssent 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 asserts, 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 ofprodigiabirth-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 passage inAelian[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 Assyria[196], but is part of the conventional divinatory phraseology of these texts, while the interpretation based on the association of the lion with power forms a complete and verbal parallel to the system devised by thebârû-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 thebârû-priests. We are, therefore, justified in looking upon this circumstance 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-Assyrian 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 speakinginfant 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-Assyrian Hepatoscopy in the Hittite centre Boghaz-Kewi[200]and which definitely establishes the spread of this division of Babylonian-Assyrian Divination to Asia Minor, it is quite in keeping with what we would have a right to expect, to come across traces of Babylonian-Assyrian 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 passing 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 Assyria, subsequently spread to Asia Minor and through the mediation of Hittites 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-Assyrian Astrology through thedirect contact between Greece and Euphratean culture, leading to a mutual exchange of views and customs.
There is still another aspect of the subject of Babylonian-Assyrian Birth-omens to which attention should be directed, and which will further illustrate the cultural significance of the views that gave rise to this extensive subdivision of Babylonian-Assyrian divination. We have in the course of our investigations noted the tendency in the collections of thebârû-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 eweactuallygiving 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 wouldbe 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 thebârû-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-Assyrian birth-omens form the first chapter in the history of monsters. The very termmonstrum, as already suggested, reflects the Babylonian-Assyrian point of view, as a being which is sent as a sign—‘pointing’ (monstrare) to some coming event. Amonstrumis in fact ademonstrationof 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-Assyrian 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 anisbuor 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 Babylonianšeduorlamassu[207]—the protecting spirits or demons guardingthe 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 Assyrian 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 assumption 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-Assyrianhandbooks 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 beingscouldbe produced in nature. The fanciful combinations in the collections of thebârû-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 substitution 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 thepractical 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-Assyrian 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 Mašu 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 Assyrian art[216], and reappear as sphinxes in Hittite[217]and Egyptian art. The Hippocentaur in various forms also appears in the Babylonian art of the Cassite period[218].
If we are correct in tracing the spread of Babylonian-Assyrian birth-omens to the peoples of Asia Minor and thence to the Greeks and Romans, and in associating 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 thebârû-priests, the spread of this belief would accompany the extension of the sphere of influence of Babylonian-Assyrian divination and of Euphratean culture in general. The thesis here proposed would, therefore, carry with it the assumption 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-Assyrian birth-omens.
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 Götter und die menschlichen Mißgeburten’ (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 illustrations) was suggested by the child born with one eye[219], the siren (11 seq. with illustration) by the abnormal but actually occurring phenomenonof a child born with the feet united[220]. A double headed god like Janus (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 illustrations) 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 breasts 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 backallthe 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 malformationsplusthe 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 thesignificanceattached 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 alsofor 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 association of the belief in fabulous creatures with birth-omens in Babylonia and Assyria lends a presumption in favor of the same association 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 traceallthe fabulous beings of classical 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 Assyrian literature or art in order to justify the dependence of the former upon Babylonian-Assyrian 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-Assyrian astrology in adapting it to their environment and their way of thinking, and just as the Etruscans and Romans modified the Babylonian-Assyrian hepatoscopy[223]. All that is claimed here is that theconceptionof monstrous and fabulous beings is a direct outcome of the importance attached to Birth-omens; and since the Babylonians and Assyrians are the only people who developed an elaborate system of divination in which the interpretation of birth-omens constituted 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 Mißgeburten’ in theZeitschr. für Ethnologie[224]adopts the thesis of Dr. Schaatz and applies it to account for the frequent representation of gods in India with excess organs or an excess number of parts of the body—gods and goddesses with many heads, with three or four eyes, various breasts and more the like. The same would of course apply to representations of Chinese gods and demons. Bab’s paper is elaborately illustrated and the juxtaposition of actual malformations with the representation of gods 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-Assyrian systems of divination to the distant East, though we now have some evidence pointing to a spread in this direction of Babylonian-Assyrian astrology[226]and perhaps also of Babylonian-Assyrian 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 assertion of the possibility that Babylonian-Assyrian 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 gods 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 ofvery 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 thezikkuratsor 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 themastabato 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 Assyrians 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 itdown 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 gods 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-Assyrian 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 gods and goddesses, is on the whole more plausible than to assume 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 gods 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 thethoughtof 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 theactualexistence of beings in which the humanand 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 assignssent 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 classes 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 transformedinto 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 gods 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 Ass where the hero is changed into a talking ass 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 ass 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 precludea prioria 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 associated,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,ostentaandportentato use the terms employed by Latin writers. All these terms convey the idea that such phenomena are signs sent by the gods as a means of indicating what the gods 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.