Excavating a Fake Snake
One of the most rewarding things about my recent visit and paper at the University of Richmond was some great new insights into the way in which dream archaeology works. Prof. Julie Laskaris shared a citation from the 2nd century writer Lucian who described how Alexander of Abonoteichos initiated his deception with the snake-puppet god Glycon. While this passage does not involve dreams explicitly, it showed that even in antiquity there was some skepticism surrounding claims of inventio.
According to Lucian, Alexander buried a blown goose egg with a baby snake in it in the foundations of a temple that was under construction. Alexander then discovered the egg and the snake, incubated it, and then promoted the snake as Glycon around which he built a cult.
Here’s the passage from Lucian’s Alexander 13-14:
13. When at length it was time to begin, he contrived an ingenious ruse. Going at night to the foundations of the temple which were just being excavated, where a pool of water had gathered which either issued from springs somewhere in the foundations themselves or had fallen from the sky, he secreted there a goose-egg, previously blown, which contained a snake just born; and after burying it deep in the mud, he went back again. In the morning he ran out into the market-place naked, wearing a loin-cloth (this too was gilded), carrying his falchion, and tossing his unconfined mane like a devotee of the Great Mother in the frenzy. Addressing the people from a high altar upon which he had climbed, he congratulated the city because it was at once to receive the god in visible presence. The assembly—for almost the whole city, including women, old men, and boys, had come running— marvelled, prayed and made obeisance. Uttering, a few meaningless words like Hebrew or Phoenician, he dazed the creatures, who did not know what he was saying save only that he everywhere brought in Apollo and Asclepius. [14] Then he ran at full speed to the future temple, went to the excavation and the previously improvised fountain-head of the oracle, entered ‘the water, sang hymns in honour of Asclepius and Apollo at the top of his voice, and besought the god, under the blessing of Heaven, to come to the city. Then he asked for a libation-saucer, and when somebody handed him one, deftly slipped it underneath and brought up, along with water and mud, that egg in which he had immured the god; the joint about the plug had been closed with wax and white lead. Taking it in his hands, he asserted that at that moment he held Asclepius! They gazed unwaveringly to see what in the world was going to happen; indeed, they had already marvelled at the discovery of the egg in the water. But when he broke it and received the tiny snake into his hollowed hand, and the crowd saw it moving and twisting about his fingers, they at once raised a shout, welcomed the god, congratulated their city, and began each of them to sate himself greedily with prayers, craving treasures, riches, health, and every other blessing from, him. But Alexander went home again at full speed, taking with him the new-born Asclepius, “born twice, when other men are born but once,” whose mother was not Coronis, by Zeus, nor yet a crow, but a goose! And the whole population followed, all full of religious fervour and crazed with expectations.
Prof. Walt Stevenson added to this conversation by noting that Cyril of Jerusalem was skeptical of the power of relics of the true cross excavated by St. Helena in Jerusalem:
Cyril, Cat. 4.10:
10. He was truly crucified for our sins. For if you would deny it, the place refutes you visibly, this blessed Golgotha , in which we are now assembled for the sake of Him who was here crucified; and the whole world has since been filled with pieces of the wood of the Cross. But He was crucified not for sins of His own, but that we might be delivered from our sins. And though as Man He was at that time despised of men, and was buffeted, yet He was acknowledged by the Creation as God: for when the sun saw his Lord dishonoured, he grew dim and trembled, not enduring the sight.
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