Witkower Eagle and Serpent

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Eagle and Serpent. A Study in the Migration of Symbols

Author(s): Rudolf WittkowerSource: Journal of the Warburg Institute, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Apr., 1939), pp. 293-325Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750041

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EAGLE AND SERPENTA Study in the Migration of Symbols

By Rudolf WittkowerI n seeking to prove their case, 'diffusionist'ethnologists, who are concernedwith the migration of symbols,1 have perhaps paid insufficient attentionto those historical periods and civilizations in which the transmission of rites,symbols and ideas is adequately documented. And their opponents havebeen inclined to forget that in many fields of historical study the diffusionistmethod is already regarded as the natural starting-point of any discussionand, indeed, has often become a highly developed technique of research.On the other hand, students of European history have long realized thatit is not enough, in order to understand a particular historical situation,to know whence a symbol came and whither it went. This method needsto be supplemented by the 'functional' method: that is, the attempt to under-stand the significance of a particular symbol in a given context. Europeanhistory provides such a quantity of documentary material that it has longbeen possible to apply to it the functional method with positive results.In the present essay we shall deal with a very common symbol, thestruggle between the Eagle and the Snake. Fights between eagles andsnakes have actually been observed,2 and it is easy to understand that thesight of such a struggle must have made an indelible impressionupon humanimagination in its infancy. The most powerful of birds was fighting themost dangerous of reptiles. The greatness of the combat gave the eventan almost cosmic significance. Ever since, when man has tried to expressa struggle or a victory of cosmic grandeur, the early memory of this eventhas been evoked.Our procedure will be to argue from evidence to be found in theMediterranean world. Since the migration of our symbol can be tracedwith certainty in Europe and the Mediterranean world of antiquity, it isreasonable to suspect that when the same symbol appears outside that areain different places and at different periods, it was not invented again inde-pendently, even if the connecting links are still missing. The most importantpart of such an investigation is the chronology, for the proof of the migrationtheory depends on it. Dates in ethnological material must quite often bebased on uncertain suppositions; but in general, I hope, the chronologicalscheme here presented can be accepted.The 'functional' method applied to the European material shows thatthe same pictorial symbol, although always expressive of identical pairsof fundamental opposites, has in each case a very distinct meaning in thespecial historical setting in which it occurrs. Lack of space and lack ofknowledge have compelled me to leave the nqn-Europeanmaterial in a moregeneralized form, although very often the exact function of the symbolcould be worked out by specialists.

1 For a survey of ethnological methods cf.Alfred C. Haddon, History of Anthropology,1934 and R. H. Lowie, The Historyof Ethno-logical Theory, 1937-

2 Cf. R. Lydekker, The Royal NaturalHistory, I895, IV, p. 194 ff. Otto Keller,Thieredes classischenAlterthums,887, p. 247-293


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294 RUDOLF WITTKOWERi. Difusion of the Symbol n non-classicalCivilisations

Representations of eagles are known on pottery and cut stones of thevery earliest civilizations, in Babylonia, in Elam, and also in the Indusvalley. In Elamite pottery from Susa, where the persistence of an eagle-type can be followed up for many centuries from the early specimens of the4th millenium,1 the bird with outstretched wings appears in three differentways : first alone, secondly with a snake placed near it, thirdly graspingin its beak or talons its prey, which is sometimes a snake.2 (P1.49c)It has been proved that in many fields a connexion existed between theearly Indus civilisation and the cultures of Elam and Mesopotamia. Aseagle representations are rare in the Punjab and in Sindh,3 it may beinferred that the subject was introduced from the West without becomingindigenous in India. This inference is supported by the discovery atHarappa of a steatite pendant (c. 300oooB.C.) showing an eagle withtwo snakes placed symmetrically above its wings without touching the bird(P1. 49b),4 a type otherwise unknown in India.The eagle is here probably a solar symbol. Such an interpretationneed not altogether surprise us if we consider the stability of a number ofsymbols and conceptions in the Near East over thousands of years andthe fact that later the eagle definitely appears as the bird of sun and heaven.In this context a sculpturein the round of an eagle, probably found at Adab,5is of importance. Taken by itself its meaning would be obscure, but it isreally the first in a long series of similar free statues representing eagles(P1. 5oa, b), of which the latest examples are unquestionably solar incharacter.6Moreover there seem to be traces of a connexion between the eagle andlight in Babylonian thought as early as in the 3rd millenium B.C. Ningirsu,the god of the Sumerian town Lagash, is the god of fertility, of war and ofstorm, and in inscriptionsof King Gudea (c. 2500 B.C.) he appears as themaster controlling "the order of the Heavens."' The lion-headed eagleImgi or Imdugud is the attribute of this god,8 who sometimes actually takeson its shape.9 Imdugud is the divine bird who "shines on the firma-1Pottier, De'lgation en Perse. Mimoires,XIII, 1912, Pls. XVIII, 1, 3, 4, 5, XXVIII,2, XXXI, 2, XXXIV, 2, XXXV, 2, XLIV,6.2 Mecquenem, ibidem,p. 157, Nos. 396, 404;P. Toscanne, "LEtudesur le Serpent", ibidem,XII, I911, pp. 204 ff., 215 f., figs. 389-392,430-435. The specimen published on plate49c shows a double snake beside the beak ofthe eagle.3 E. J. H. Mackay, FurtherExcavations tMohenjo-daro, 938, I, p. 663 f.4Ibid. and V. Gordon Childe, The MostAncient East, 1929, P1. 24.5 Ebeling-Meissner, Reallexikon er Assyrio-logie, 1932, I, p. 37, P1. 7-6Such argumentsexpostarealways danger-ous, and I do not wish to deny the probability

that a symbol which in a relatively advancedstate of religious life acquired solar signific-ance fulfilled originally a more primitivefunction. Cf. p. 295, note 2.7 F. Thureau-Dangin, Die SumerischenndAkkadischenKdnigsinschriften,eipzig, I907,p. Ior (Io, I3)-8 Cf. Thureau-Dangin, "L'aigle Imgi",Revue d'Assyriologie t d'ArcheologieOrientale,XXIV, 1927, p. 199iff. who suggests thatthe eagle in Susa is the symbol of the localgod Nin-gugina. M. Witzel in Zeitschr. arAssyriologieVI, 1931, pp. 95-104 maintainsagainst Thureau-Dangin that the bird'snameis 'Imdugud'.9Often represented on seals. An excep-tional example is the silver vase of King


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49

. . . . .............

and Snake. Babylonian b-Indian steatite Pen- c-Detail of Vase from d-Babylonian Seal, thirdc. 3oo0 B.C. (p. 295) dant, c. 3000 B.C. (p. 294) Susa II (p. 294) Millenium (p. 295)

g-Indian steatite(?) Seal 5th cent. (?)Brit. Mus. f-Scythian Sword- A.D. Taxila, Mohra309) Sheath, 6th-5th cent. Moradu (30B.C.(((P300)Moradu (p. 301).C. (p. 30)

Vase of King Entemena, c. 2900 i-Copper Eagle from Perm, k, 1-Garuda and Naga. Frescoes inLouvre (pp.295, 317) c. 500 B.C. (p. 301) Qyzil, Turkestan, 7th-9th cent. AD.(P. 299)

andaFro m AWEA.D.(p.299) n Wood carving from New Ireland

(P. 299 f.)

o-Mexican Miniature. p-Gold Amulet from CostaCodex Borgia (p. 305) Rica. Brit. Mus. ( . 306)


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EAGLE AND SERPENT 295ment;" he is often associated with rays, and one inscription of Gudeasuggests that he fights with the serpent.2 From Hammurabi's time onwards(c. 2000 B.C.) the god Ninib clearly has the solar qualities which wereapparently associated with Ningirsu since Gudea's reign, and Assyrianhymnsnarrate his fight with the monster.3 Moreover it seems likely that Ningirsuhimself was also a monster-killer' and that the vanquished monster is thedaimon of darkness and evil.5A fight between eagle and snake occurs in the Etana myth.6 Theeagle is first overpowered by the snake of the night,7 but the hero Etanaliberates the bird, and as a reward the animal carries him up to heaven.To the eagle, the bird of light, the heavenly sphere is accessible.We come across the transport of the hero on the eagle's wings inBabylonian seals of the middle of the 3rd millenium B.C. (P1. 5 a)8-theprototype of Ganymede and the source of the Roman apotheosisg-butrepresentationsof an actual fight between eagle and snake seem rather rare.They occur on a seal of the third millenium B.C. with an eagle heraldicallygrasping two snakes10(P1. 49d) and on the fragment in Constantinople ofa soapstone bas-relief from Adab (P1. 49a)" which had inlays of colouredpaste and can be dated in the early dynastic period (first half of 3rd mill.).12As in both cases the eagle is victorious, a connection with the Etana myth,where the eagle is first vanquished and then liberated, is not possible.It is probably more correct to interpret these representations as Ningirsu'sbird vanquishing the monsters of darkness, for this is confirmed by laterEntemena (c. 2900 B.C.) in the Louvre withthe eagle holding two lions in its talons(P1. 49h). Cf. Leon Heuzey, De'couvertesnChaldde, 1884-1912, I, p. 261 ff.1Cf. Thureau-Dangin, Kdinigsinschriften,op. cit., pp. 93 (4, 17), 99 (9, 13), IoI (IO, I3),135 (14, 15-16).2 Ibid., p. 119 (27, I9).-It is not impos-sible that the eagle acquired solar qualitieswhen early fertility gods were supersededby solar deities during the 3rd millenium inBabylonia. This would explain the fact thaton seals of the Sargonid age (c. 2500 B.C.)a bird of prey, probably an eagle, appearsas the monster Zu (H. Frankfort, CylinderSeals, 1939, p. 132 f.) side by side with thelion-headed eagle as representative of the'good' side. This would give us the historicalstarting point for tracing the solar conceptionof the eagle which then migrated fromBabylonia to many other civilisations.3 M. Witzel, Der DrachenkdmpferNinib("Keilinschriftliche Studien" 2), 1920, pp.38 f., 75 f., Io6 ff. Jastrow, Die ReligionBabyloniensundAssyriens,1905, I, pp. 153, 224,459. Ninib combines many other qualitieswhich in later civilisations are also attributedto the sun-god and to the eagle : he is the godof oracles, and of war, of thunder and light-

ning, of hunting, agriculture and medicine.4 Witzel, op.cit., p. 126 ff. The idea of thisfight was transferred to a number of othergods of the Babylonian-Assyrian Pantheon.5 A seal of the middle of the 3rd milleniumB.C. actually shows Ningirsu's lion-headedeagle attacking the human-shaped monster.Cf. H. Frankfort, Cylinder Seals, 1939,P1. 23b.-I owe Professor Frankfort a greatnumber of valuable suggestions for whichI want to express my gratitude.6 Edward J. Harper in Beitrdge ur Assyrio-logie, 1894, II, p. 390 ff., Jastrow in Journalof the AmericanOrientalSociety,XXX, I9I0,p. Ioi ff.7 Cf. B. Meissner, Babylonienund Assyrien,1925, II, p. 428.8 Frankfort, op. cit., p. 138 f. discusses theimplications of the Etana seals.9 F. Cumont, J8tudesSyriennes, 1917, p. 82.10 O0. Weber, AltorientalischeSiegelbilder,1920, II, No. 274-11 Ebeling-Meissner, Reallexikon erAssyrio-logie, 1932, I, p. 37, P1. 6.12 For the date compare a similar greenstone vase found in the temple of Sin inKhafaja. Cf. Frankfort, Oriental InstituteDiscoveries in Iraq. 1933-4. Chicago, 1935,p. 46.


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296 RUDOLF WITTKOWERdevelopments. The type of the fragment in Constantinople with the snakestanding upright close to the eagle so that both heads are on the same levelis still dominant, more than three thousand years later, in Byzantine artas the symbol of Christ triumphing over Satan (P1. 52b).In Egypt as well as in Western Asia the kings are descended from thesun.' Pharaoh was the son of Rd, and appearsas Horus, the divine falcon,who after Pharaoh's death flies to heaven.2 The falcon here fulfils the samefunction as the imperial eagle in Roman apotheosis. The falcon is the onlybird which can look unharmed into the rays of the sun, and it is at thesame time the bird of oracles and prophecy.3 Thus it has all the qualitiesof the eagle and it is only logical that in late Egyptian texts it should bereplaced by the eagle, under whose image Horus is now venerated.4The winged disk of Horus is the best known Egyptian symbol. It wasset over every temple to ward off evil, in commemoration of the victoryof Horus over the monster Set, of light and good over darkness and evil.The solar disk consists of three different parts : the actual disk, the wingsof eagle or falcon attached to it, and two uraeus nakes. In early times thefirst two elements appeared alone; the snakes are a later addition and donot occur regularly before the 18th Dynasty.5The Egyptian solar disk recurs during the second millenium in WesternAsia6where it was identified with the solar eagle (P1.5oh).7 We find it very

1Calvin W. Mc Evan, The orientalOriginof HellenisticKingship,Chicago, 1934, p. 6 ff.2Gardiner in Cumont, J?tudessyriennes,1917, pp. I09if., 113. A. Erman, DieReligion der Aegypter, I934, p. 55 f.3Th. Hopfner, Der Tierkult der AltenAegypter ("Denkschriften der Kais. Ak. d.Wiss. in Wien", vol. 57, 2), 1913, p. III f.4W. Spiegelberg, Der AegyptischeMythusvom Sonnenauge,1917, p. 2. H. Grapow, Diebildlichen Ausdriickeder Aegypter, I924, p. 90o.5S. Reinach, "Aetos Prometheus," RevueArche'ologique, i907, ii, p. 65 ff. For ahypothesis about the origin of the solar diskcf. H. Schafer in Die Antike, III, 1927,p. I24 ff.The development of the symbol from thesimpler to the more composite form is pre-served in a late version of a myth. Thesun-god Rd askshis son Horus to slaughterhis enemies, a task which the latter fulfils inthe shape of the winged solar disk. But thereis a second stage of the fight in which thegoddesses of the North and South in theshape of snakesjoin in the battle against Set.The text published and fully commented byH. Brugsch, "Die Sage von der gefliigeltenSonnenscheibe," Abhdl. d. kgl. Ges. d. Wiss.zu Giittingen,XIV, 1869, p. I73 ff. Cf. G.Roeder, Urkundenzur Religion des AltenAgypten,Jena, 1923, p. I20o f. The real gene-

sis of the symbol-one of the rare peacefulcombinations of bird and snake-is probablythe synthesis of a primitive chthonic snakecult with the higher forms of a solar cult.Cf. Theodor Hopfner, op. cit., p. 136 f.A similar story is told in the "Book of theDead." Here the Sun-god, Rd, overcomeseach morning the monster Aapep who layhidden under the place where the sun rose,waiting to swallow up the solar disk. Suchmyths of the solar bird fighting the monsteras a symbol of the oppossed forces of lightand darkness,good and evil, are very muchakin to the Babylonian myth of Ningirsu-Ninib's fight against the monster Labbu orthat of Bel-Marduk against the dragon of theocean Tiamat.

6 Goblet d'Alviella, "Recherches sur l'his-toire du globe ail6 hors de l'Igypte," Bull.de l'Acad. royale de Belgique, LVIII, I888,p. 623 ff. and The Migrationof symbols, 894,p. 204 ff. Eduard Meyer, Reich und Kulturder Chetiter, I914, P. 29 ff., A. B. Cook, Zeus,1914, I, p. 205 ff. A detailed account of theimplications of the winged disk on Asiaticsoil in H. Frankfort, CylinderSeals, I939,pp. 205-215-7R. Dussaud, Notes de Mythologie yrienne,Paris, 1903, p. 15 ff.-Pl. 5oh, after Cook I,p. 205.


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EAGLE AND SERPENT 297often in Hittite representationsabove the head of the king, where againit symbolises the descent of the ruler from the sun. From here it was takenover into the AssyrianPantheon as the sign of the solar god, Ashur, hoveringover the heads of kings, and from Assyria it finally passed into Persia as thesymbol of the god of light, Auramazda. In Assyrian representations thehalf-figure of the god Ashur frequently emerges from the solar disk. Bothtypes, the simple solar disk and that with the god in the centre, passed onto Persia.Large eagle statues have been found in various civilizations of WesternAsia belonging to the second and first milleniums B.C. The gigantic stoneeagle from Yamoola in the Hittite Empire (P1. 5oa), seven feet high,indicates the importance of this cult.' Some scholars interpret this eagleas holding a twisted serpent in its talons,2 and, if this view is correct, itseems evident that the snake represents a vanquished opponent of the sun.Hittite eagle statues have been found as far away as Aleppo.3In Hellenistic and Roman times eagle statues still appear on Syriansoil4 (P1. 50ob),though much reduced in size. They represent Helios andunder their naturalistic form we can still sense the old Hittite conception.The link between the Hittite and the late Syrian monuments is providedby Assyria and Persia. There are many instances which suggest that theeagle as the bird of the sun was of fundamental importance in Persian beliefand imagery. Zoroastrianism is based on the conflict between the god oflight and goodness, Auramazda the eagle, and the power of darkness andevil, Ahriman the dragon.5 Such late monuments as the lintel of theporch of the sun-temple in Hatra, where a bust of Helios appears betweentwo symmetrically arranged eagles with serpents in their beaks, is proof ofthe persistence of these ideas (P1. 50c).6Long before the foundation of the Achaemenid Empire (550 B.C.) eaglerepresentationsappear in the decorative stylised bronzes of Luristan, madebeween the 9th and 6th centuries B.C. by the Persian mountain tribeswho between 1761-1185 B.C. were masters of Babylonia and brought backto their homeland Mesopotamian ideas and symbols. In some of these

1The significanceof the eagle cult has not yetbeen definitely determined,cf.John Garstang,The Hittite Empire,London, 1929, p. I 15. Butit seems very probable that there existed aHittite sun cult with the eagle as itssymbol.2 Garstang, op. cit., p. 123.3 For such eagle monuments cf. Garstang,op. cit., pp. I05, 115, I23, I43 and A. Moort-gat, Die Bildende Kunst des Alten Orients unddie Bergvulker, 1932, P. 71 f.An eagle about 6 feet high, probablyalso of the middle of the 2nd millenium,has been unearthed in Tell Halaf. It wasoriginally placed on a column before thefagade of the temple-palace. Cf. Maxvon Oppenheim, Tell Halaf. A new Cul-ture in Oldest Mesopotamia, 1933, Pl. I4,

p. 132 ff., who calls it "the great Sun-bird."4 Cf. below p. 311.5 Material for the Persian eagle cult inKeller, op. cit., p. 240 f., Sittl, (cf. below p.307, note 2), p. 6. In Vedic mythologywhich influenced strongly Persian thoughtthe sun-god Sfirya is also conceived as aneagle. (Cf. A. A. Macdonell, VedicMythology,1897, p. 30 f.) It illustrates the connectionof Persia and Syria that Shuwardata = 'sun(sfirya)-given'occurs as name of Syrian prin-ces. Cf. CambridgeAncient History, II, 1924,p. 33I.6 Probably first century A. D. Cf. F.Sarre, Die Kunst des alten Persien, 1923, P. 28,P1. 62. E. Herzfeld, "Hatra," Zeitschr.d.deutschenMorgenl. Gesellsch.,68, I914, p. 671.


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298 RUDOLF WITTKOWERbronzes eagles are placed above the heads of human figures (P1.50e)-1 Weshall prove later that the eagle appears as the bird of resurrection in Syriafrom the 3rd century B.C. onwards and afterwards in imperial Rome andin Christianity. We have already seen that the falcon, whose functionwas later usurped by the eagle, was the bird of resurrection n late Egyptiancivilisation. The same association with the eagle can probably be foundin archaic Greece,2 and, in view of this chain we think it possible to ascribethe same meaning to the Luristan bronzes-all the more since they werefound in graves.

We have already mentioned the fact that there was intercourse betweenthe Near East and India in very early times.3 Literary sources show thatthe Indian conception of the eagle is astonishingly near to that of the NearEast and it has long been established that this is due to the exchange ofideas. One of Aesop's fables provides proof of a connection between Indiaand Greece before Alexander the Great brought these two worlds intocontact. The fable relates that in a fight between an eagle and a snakethe latter was on the point of overpowering the bird when a reaper, witnessof the fight, came to the help of the eagle and killed the snake with his sickle.Later on the grateful animal saved the same man from death. In the versionof the fable known to us through &Elianhe decisive element is the old anta-gonism of good and evil and the final victory of the good.4 A storydefinitelyrelated to this occurs in India.5 It is an old point of discussion whetherthe fable migrated from India to Greece or vice versa.6 Recently its originhas been placed hypothetically in the Achaemenid Empire of Darius.7But as the essential features of the tale : the overpowering of the eagleby the snake, the rescuing of the bird, and his gratefulness,already appearin the Etana myth there is no reason why the story should not belongto a very old stock of Babylonian tales, particularly since the origin ofcertain animal tales has been traced to Babylonia.8Indian literature from the earliest times onwards relates the enmitybetween the eagle-likebird Garuda or Suparna and the snakeNaga. Garudais the carrier of the sun-godVishnu (P1.54b),9 and Indra, in the form of aneagle, steals the soma, the drink of immortality.10 Agni, the god of fire, is

1Andre Godard, Les Bronzesdu Luristan,1931, No. 205.2 Cf. below p. 309.3Kolipada Mitra, "The Bird and SerpentMyth," Quarterly Journal of the MythicSociety(Bangalore), XVI, 1925-6, p. 89 ff.,18o ff., collected much evidence for theserelations. The author claims that the birdand serpent myth was diffusedfrom India.4 AElian,De naturaanimalium,XVII, 37 :"Agricola, quod non ignoraret aquilamJovis nuntiam et ministram esse, et quodnosset feram et improbam bestiam esseserpentem, falce eam dissecuit."5Theodor Benfey, Pantschatantra,1859,

I, p. 363.

6 Cf. mainly Benfey, loc. cit., who is infavour of the Indian origin, and A. Marx,GriechischeMdrchen on dankbarenTierenundVerwandtes,1889, p. 29 ff. who takes theopposite view.7 W. R. Halliday, Indo-Europeanolk-Talesand GreekLegend, 1933, p. 49 f.8 E. Ebeling, Die babylonischeabel andihreBedeutungiir die Literaturgeschichte,Mittlgn.d. Altoriental. Gesellschaft," II, 3, 1927,p. 17.-Cf. also below pp. 304, 323-9 P1.54b is a modern representation for-med on mediaeval prototypes.10Related in the great epic of Brahmanliterature, the Mahdbhdrata,and in theSuparnddhydya, poem still in the dialogue


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Eagle fromc. 1400 B.C.297)b-Syrian Helios-eagle.Bronze. Greco-RomanPeriod. Private Coll.(pp. 297, 311)

c-Lintel in the Great Palace at Hatra.ist cent. A. D. (p. 297) d--SyrianRelief from Suweida

(P. 311)

Bronzecent. B.C.,Coll. (p. 298)f-Cinerary urn from Grichwil.Greek. 6th cent. B.C. (p. 309) g-Sarcophagus

inS. Lorenzo, Rome. Detail.3rd cent. A.D. (p. 311)


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EAGLE AND SERPENT 299the eagle of the sky and a divine bird.' All the gods sing a hymn toGaruda in which he is addressed as the sun, Indra, Vishnu, Agni, etc.2It seems therefore certain, that the bird and snake fight had originally acosmic meaning which was lost with the penetration of the motive intofairy tales and fables.3 Buddha himself or his pupils successfullyreconciledthe hereditary cosmic feud between bird and snake.4The fight of Garuda and Naga is a favourite subject in Indian art,particularly with the Graeco-Buddhist school of Gandhara.5 In suchversions of the theme the Naga appears in human form, the type beingclearly dependent on the Greek group of Ganymede by Leochares.6 Onealso finds representations with a griffin-like Garuda under Near Easterninfluence.7 Particular importance attaches to a purely Indian relief fromAmaravati (2nd century A.D., British Museum, P1.49m)8 because it pointsto the Indian derivation of similar Oceanic works (P1. 49n).In the North, Garuda and Naga representationscan be found in frescoesin Chinese Turkestan of the 7th-9th centuries A.D. (P1.49k, 1).9 But theheraldic type of these monuments with the double headed eagle provesthem to be offsprings of the same Western Asiatic prototypes, coloured byPersian influences, which we find in contemporary works in Byzantium.10From India the eagle and serpent myth spread also to the East andSouth. It was carried into China with Buddhism" (introduced in China65 A.D.) and from here reached Japan through Korea.12 With theform of Vedic times. Cf. J. Ph. Vogel,IndianSerpent ore,1926, p. 5'1 f. The mythsabout the theft of the drinks of the gods col-lected by Adalbert Kuhn, Die HerabkunftesFeuersunddesGIittertranks,859, p. 138 ff.

1 A. A. Macdonell, VedicMythology, p. 89,152 with further material.2 K. Mitra, op. cit., p. 88.3Vogel, op. cit., p. I66 ff. A. K. Cooma-raswamy, "Angel and Titan : an Essay inVedic Ontology," Journal of the AmericanOrient.Soc., LV, 1935, p. 418 f. interpretsGaruda and Naga as "outward oppositionof the separated principles" of the powersof Light and the powers of Darkness.4 Vogel, op. cit., pp. 132 ff-, 142, Mitra,op. cit., p. I90o.6 A. Foucher, L'Art Greco-BouddhiqueuGandhdra, aris, 1918, II, pp. 28-40.

6 Cf. p. 301, note2. Vogel, op.cit., p. 171 ff.7Griinwedel, BuddhistischeKunst in Indien,190goo, p. 47 ff. A survey of Garuda-Nagarepresentations in Gisbert Combaz, L'Indeet 1'Orient classique, Paris, 1937, PP- 155-163.8 Foucher, op.cit.,fig. 466. For the date cf.K. de B. Codrington,Ancientndia,1926, p. 36.9 Griinwedel, Altbuddhistische ultstdtten nChinesisch-Turkestan, 1912, pp. 54, 129.A. von Le Coq, Bilderatlaszur Kunst undKulturgeschichteittel-Asiens, 925,particularly

frescos in Qyzil, figs. 236, 237, 239. Zoltande Takacs, "L'Art des grandes Migrations,"Revue des Arts Asiatiques, VII, 1931-2, p. 33.10The motive of the double eagle whichoccurs for the first time on a large scale inthe Hittite Empire cannot be traced inthis article. Relevant material can befound in the following studies : Sittl (belowp. 307, note 2), p. i i. Keller, op. cit., p. 276,Goblet d'Alviella, The Migr. of Symb.,op.cit.,p. 21 ff. M. van Berchem and Strzygowski,Amida,1910, p. 93 ff., Dalton, ByzantineArt,1911, p. 707. E. Male, L'Art religieux duXIIe sidcle nFrance,1924, p. 349 ff. WalterW. S. Cook in Art Studies,1924, P- 58, Bern-heimer, RomanischeTierplastik, 1931, p. 1oI if.11It prevails in Tibet, cf. Mitra, op.cit.,p. 192.A bronze of Garuda and Naga from Tibet(Getty Coll., Paris) published by KaiserWilhelm II, Studienzur Gorgo,Berlin 1936,fig. 18, who based on the material of the"Forschungsinstitut fir Kulturmorphologie"at Frankfort wrote a chapter on the bird-snake motive.About the same motive on Chinese bronzescf. Andre Leroi-Gourhan, "L'Art animalierdans les bronzes chinois", RevuedesArts Asia-tiques, IX, 1935, pp. I85, I89.12 M. Anesaki,JapaneseMythology"Mytho-


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300 RUDOLF WITTKOWERdissemination of Indian culture it appears in the islands of Indonesia : inthe Philippine Islands, in Sumatra, Borneo and Java.' In Java the Indianinfluence is particularly strong. One of the finest Javanese sculptures ofabout 1043 A.D. shows the portrait-statue of Airlanga, the first great kingof EasternJava, in his apotheosis as Vishnu riding upon Garuda who holdsa Naga in his talons2-exactly as deified Roman emperors appear on coinsabove the eagle of Zeus (P1.5If). As in the Near East, kings in India wereof divine origin, and after their death they became once more the deity fromwhom they were descended.From India the eagle and serpent myth spread over the wide regionsof the Pacific. Anthropologists have not yet satisfactorily explained theorigin of the peoples in the Oceanic area, although we now know that aseries of waves of migration from the west followed one after the other. Itis now almost generally accepted that the last invaders of the islands hadoriginally occupied India and had retired slowly to the islandsof the Pacificbefore the advancing newcomers. The final settlement on the islands maynot have been accomplished until about Iooo A.D.3The many affinities of Indian and Polynesian mythology thus becomeintelligible by the contact of the two races. It is therefore not surprisingtofind in Melanesia and Polynesiaa special bird-cult of definitelysolarcharacter.In Maori ceremonies of New Zealand the bird is called "Manu-i-te-Ra,"that is "Bird in the Sun." Its name is also changed to "Tama-nui-te-Ra,"the actual name for Sun.4The southern tribes of Australia venerate their supreme god, who againis connected with a solar cult, in the shape of an eagle.5 In Melanesiaand Polynesia the fight of eagle and bird is a familiar theme. We knowwood-carvings of the scene from New-Guinea, New-Mecklenburgh, New-Ireland (P1.49n), New-Zealand, and other islands of the Pacific.6 The birdis the totem sign of the dead, and the evil spirits conquered by it, arerepresented as serpents or lizards.' A great number of legends exist whichlogy of All Races" VIII) 1928, p. 268.Kolipada Mitra, op. cit., p. 190.

1Ibid.,p. 192.2 A. K. Coomaraswamy, Historyof IndianandIndonesian rt, 1927, pp. 185, 207, fig. 360.J. Ph. Vogel, "The Relation between theArt of India and Java," in : TheInfluencesfIndianArt, London, The India Society, 1925,p. 79 ff.3J. Macmillan Brown, Maori and Polyne-sians. Their origin, historyand culture.Lon-don, 1907, p. 98 ff. S. Percy Smith in Jour-nal of thePolyn. Society,1919, p. 19 ff., Skin-ner, ibidem, 1924, P. 229 ff. R. B. Dixon,The Racial Historyof Man, 1923, PP- 344,349, 385.4 Gilbert Archey in Journalof thePolynesianSociety,1933, p. I82 ff. The fact that thissolar bird lives on a mountain connects itwith the common conception of the Moun-tain of the World. It is noticeable that

amulets in bird form were popular inPolynesia, cf. Skinnerin Journ.of thePol. Soc.,1933, p. 2 ff.r Sternberg in Archivf. Religionswissen-schaft, 1930, p. 135.6 Cf. Edge-Partington and Heape, Ethno-graphicalAlbum of the Pacific Islands, 189o,Serie I, 2, Pls. 240, 241. F. von Luschan,Beitrdge ur V4lkerkunde,erlin 1897, p. 78 f.,pl. 47. W. Foy, Tanzobjekte omBismarckArchipel,Nissanund Buka ("Publicationen ausdem kgl. Ethnogr. Museum zu Dresden"XIII), 1900, p. 29 f., P1.XII, 4,5 with manyreferences. Frobenius in Internationalesrchivfiir Ethnographie,I, 1898, p. 130 ff. Skin-ner in Journ. of the Polyn. Society,1924, p.236 ff.~Elsdon Best, Maori Storehouses "NewZealand. Dominion Museum," No. 5).1916, p. 42 if.


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EAGLE AND SERPENT 301relate this struggle and each carving is associated with a particular versionof the story. There exist carvings in which the bird grasps the sickle ofthe moon instead of the serpent,' and this points to the fact that the fightof bird and snake was also associated with the old cosmic struggle of sun andmoon, light and darkness.2

The highland of Iran is the centre through which Scythian tribes becameacquainted with the eagle cult. The Scythians, who through their contactwith the Greeks in the 7th century B.C. added to their Asiatic heritage astrong archaic Ionian influence, developed a distinct animal style in whichfighting animals play a prominent role. But, unlike the heraldic style ofAsia Minor or the Western naturalistic style this animal style follows itsown laws of extreme decorative ornamentation, a style which in essenceremained identical-in spite of many important changes-for fifteen hundredyears over the whole North of Asia and Europe from the Pacific to Ireland.At a relatively early date (6th to 4th century B.C.) Scythian civilisationspread along the Danube up to Eastern Germany on the one hand andinto the steppes of Central and Northern Asia on the other hand. Thusrepresentations of the eagle occur not only in Southern Russia,3east of theBosporus, but also in the famous find ploughed up near Vettersfelde inLower Lusatia (Germany, end of the 6th century B.C.),4 as well as in LittleRussia west of the Urals6 and in Northern Siberia.6 Some of these objectsclosely recall Persian art, and even sometimes Babylonian types (P1. 49i) .On the other hand we know of a Scythian sword-sheath of the 6/5th cen-turies B.C. ornamented with a griffin-like bird holding a snake in its beakwhich is related to the archaic Greek tradition (Pl. 49f).8 The long lifeof the Scythian types and the contact of Scythia and India can be illustratedby an Indian bronze (P1. 49g), a thousand years later in date, which

1 Edge-Partington and Heape, op. cit.,P1. 240, 4.2 Luschan in Jahrbuchd. Preuss.Kunstslg.,XXXVII, 1916, p. 205 ff. follows up themigration of the Greek Ganymede motivethrough the art of Gandhara, and throughJava to the Bismarck-Archipelago. Interest-ing as this migration is, it is certainly wrongto treat the fight between bird and snakein the islands of the Pacific as a distortedreminiscence of the Ganymede motive. It isevident that carvings as that from NewIreland are dependent on Indian prototypesof Garuda and Naga (P1. 49m, n). Cf.also Luschan, Beitrdge,op.cit., p. 67.3 Cf. Ellis H. Minns, Scythians nd Greeks,Cambridge, 1913, PP. 207, 217; and Konda-kof-Tolstoi-Reinach, Antiquitis de la RussieMiridionale, 1891, pp. 248, 378, 379, 410.4 Minns, op. cit., p. 238.5Ibid., p. 258.6 Ibid., p. 273-

'Pottier, Mim. Dilig. en Perse, op. cit.,XIII, p. 74. It could be argued thatScythian art has no ritual but only decor-ative meaning. And to-day it is certainlyimpossible to draw a strict line. But wethink that the original ritual content of theScythian animal style cannot be doubted.A scholar like Rostovtzeff (Skythienund derBosporus,1931, p. 595 f.) interprets e.g. theeagle from Perm (Urals, ab. 500 B.C.)(P1. 49i) as a solar symbol and traces itsorigin back to Persia. And Alf6ldi ("Diegeistigen Grundlagen des hochasiatischenTierstiles," Forschungennd Fortschritte,VII,1931, p. 278 ff.) tries to explain this stylethrough the structure of the society, itsmyth and religious thought.8 From the Don basin. Cf. Borovka,Scythian Art, 1928, pl. 22b; C. Trever, TheDogbird Senmurv-Paskudj,eningrad, 1938,P. 32 f.


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302 RUDOLF WITTKOWERderivesfrom a work such as the sword-sheath,plate 49f.1 The Indian bronzecan perhaps be interpreted as a Garuda-Naga group.The solar conception of the eagle migrated from Iran through Scythiato the Mongolian countries of the North. But the Persian-Scythianfiltrat-ion was not the only way by which the eagle symbolism reached Siberia.India is the second centre which-probably at a later date-stronglyinfluenced the northern regions. The eagle plays still to-day an importantpart in the religious thought, the myth and the magic of the Mongols ofSiberia.2In Mongolian tales there appearsan evil snake, which the hero Otshirvaniengages in battle. As his power was not sufficient to crush the animal he fledto a mountain-the Mountain of the World familiar in many mythologies-and changed himself into the bird Garide. In this shape he was able toovercome the monster. The names of the Mongolian Pantheon reveal theorigin of this myth. Otshirvani is a distortion of the Indian Bodhisattvaas Garide derives from the Indian Garuda.3 With most of these Siberiantribes the eagle is taboo. The bird is the master of the sun, which appearsafter being called six times by him.4 As totem of the North Siberian Yakutsit is called Tafiara, that is "the protector." Now, Tainairaappears to bethe solar deity of Turkish tribes.5 The eagle as master of light, as founderof the world, and as father of magic6is called "Ajy" by the Yakuts, the sameterm (Aijo, Aija) occurs with the Lapps and the Finns (Aijai).7 The samecomplex of ideas associated with the solar nature of the eagle is to be foundin a great number of tribes, from the Ainu,8 the aborigines of Japan, andthe Yakuts in North Eastern Siberia, the Manchu-Tunguses9and the Mon-gol-Buriats'0to the Turks and the European Finns."' With all these peopleswe find the same characteristic combination of the eagle cult with the

1Cf. Bossert, Geschichte es Kunstgewerbes,III, p. 184. The influence of the animalstyle on China of the Han period has beenstudied particularly by Rostovtzeff, Le centrede l'Asie, la Russie, la Chineet le style animal."Seminarium Kondakovianum." I929, andTheAnimalStyle in South Russia and China,Princeton, 1919, particularly p. 79 ff.2The most complete material has beencollectedby Leo Sternberg "DerAdlerkultbei den V61kern Sibiriens," Archiv . Reli-gionswissenschaft,XVIII, 1930, pp. I25-153)on whose study the following observationsare mainly based. Cf. also Uno Harva, DiereligidsenVorstellungender altaischen V61ker,Helsinki 1938 (FF Communications 52,No. 125).3 Cf. U. Holmberg, Finno-Ugric, Siberian.("The Mythology of all Races" IV), 1927,p. 345. Sternberg, op.cit., p. 141. Harva,op. cit., pp. 62, 128. As in ancient myths ofthe Near East and in those of North andCentral America the home of the evil snake

is the ocean under the earth, and by squir-ting poison on the earth it destroys menand animals.4 Sternberg, p. 128.5 Ibidem, p. 132.6 The Shaman or magician of the Siberiantribes erects a tall pole, bearing a carvedimage of a bird. This signifies the Tree ofthe World on top of which perches the eagle,a symbol of the world and of its creator.Sternberg (p. 146 ff.), traces in detail thederivation of this idea from India. Cf. alsoHarva, op. cit., pp. 43 if., 465 f.7 Sternberg, pp. I31, I33-Ibid., p. 140.9Holmberg, op. cit., p. 449.10 Ibid., p. 505, Sternberg, p. 141.11 The Finns being in contact with Siberiaon a southern route through the Scythiansand on a northern route through the Samo-yeds who, dwelling on the shores of theArctic Sea, belong to the Finno-Ugric race.


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EAGLE AND SERPENT 303Mountain of the World and the Tree of the World,1two elements of universaloccurrence which can again be traced back to Babylonia.In exact correspondence with these mythological conceptions of theAltaic and the Finno-Ugric races we find in Germanic mythology Odin inthe form of an eagle nesting in the Tree of the World. Under its root dwellsthe snake; while trying to tear down the tree it is attacked by the eagle.2It seems that these conceptions were introduced rather late into NorthernEurope. The sun cult was known already to the inhabitants of Swedenduring the Stone-Age." But there is no trace of a special function of theeagle before the great nordic epics were composed at the end of the firstmillenium A.D."

It is one of the achievements of ethnological researchof the last decades tohave shown in many fields the connection of Ancient America with theOld World, a hypothesis already propagated by Alexander von Humboldt.It is now believed that the American continent was populated by aboriginescoming from Asia at a time when a land-bridge existed in place of theBering Strait, and that even at much later periods continuous waves ofimmigration followed the same route and also came across the Pacific.5In many fields of civilisation a common Asiatic-American stock of beliefsand traditions can be established, not only with regard to the primaryimplements of civilization, such as the stone axe-toki, the same word inMelanesia, North- and South-America6-the canoe, baskets, etc.,' but also1 Sternberg, p. 134, passim. Harva, p. 84 f.on the struggle of eagle and serpent at theTree of the World. There are other con-ceptions connected with the eagle in Siberiaand Finland, e.g. his veneration as masterof fire which one finds throughout the OldWorld, in Oceania, Australia, and America.Cf. Reinach in Revue Archeologique, 1907, ii,p. 73 ff.2Sternberg, p. I36. We may also referto the fact that the serpent Midgard is a per-sonification of the ocean. About Ash Ygg-drasil, the Tree of the World, and about theMountain of the World, cf. also JohnArnott MacCulloch, EddicMythology "Myth-ology of all Races" vol. II), 1930,p. 33I ff.3 Cf. Montelius, Kulturgeschichtechwedens,19o6, p. 55. Karl Helm, AltgermanischeReligionsgeschichte,1913, I, P. 173.4The lack of a common name for theeagle in the main Indo-European langua-ges is significant. Cf. d'Arcy WentworthThompson, A Glossaryof GreekBirds. 1936,p. 2.5Edward Seler, the most distinguished stu-dent of American archaeologyof the last gen-eration, emphatically denied any real connec-

tion between the Old and the New World(cf. PreussischeJahrbiicher, XXIX, 1895, PP.488-502). Ten years later this theoryalthough challenged was still not abandoned,cf. R. Andree, "Der Ursprung der amerika-nischen Kulturen," Sitzungsber. . Anthropol.Gesellsch.n Wien,1905-6, pp. 87-98. Com-prehensive articles based on the oppositeview by Franz Boas, "Migration of AsiaticRaces... to North America," ScientificMonthly(New York), XXVIII, I929, p. I o ff. andB. Laufer, "Columbus and Cathay," Journalof the AmericanOrientalSociety,1931, p. 98 ff.About the recently unearthed cultures con-necting N. E. Asia and Alaska, cf. Hrdlickain Proceedingsof the AmericanPhilosophicalSociety, LXXI, 1932, p. 393 if.6Through the whole Pacific and bothparts of America the same ritual is connectedwith the toki. Cf. J. Imbelloni, "La pre-mibre chaine isoglossematiqueoceano-ameri-caine," FestschriftP. W. Schmidt, Vienna,I928, pp. 324-35.7 Cf. Imbelloni in Journalof thePolynesianSociety, 39, I930, pp. 322-45, on certainstone weapons belonging to Maori ethno-graphy, specimens of which were found inNorth America.


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304 RUDOLF WITTKOWERwith regard to the complex conceptionsof magic and divination, astronomicalobservations and folklore.'The ethnographical unity of North Eastern Siberia and North WesternAmerica has long been recognized.2 The Chukchee, a tribe of NorthEastern Siberia, are acquainted with the giant Noga-bird which preys onreindeer and man, elks and whales; and the tales about it show definiteaffinity with the Perso-Arab bird Roc and stories of "Sindbad the Sailor."Exactly the same stock of legends occur in Alaska.3 With all these tribesthe eagle is known in the twofold function as ruler of the world and asshaman; it is also the thunderbird, and, even to the present day, taboo.4Sometimes it is identified with the raven which appears as a solar bird overwide regions, from China and Japan to N.E. Asia and N.W. America.5It is well known that for the Indians of North America the eagle is aspecial object of worship. Many tribes venerate eagle deities; the eagleplays a prominent r6le as a totemic animal, is associated with Sky- andSun-gods and appears depicted on pottery, textiles, shields, etc.6 But thereare much stronger links with the conceptions of the Old World. In themyths of the Kwakiutl, an Indian tribe on Vancouver Island, the poisonousdouble-headed water serpent which has the power to transformeverything,men and objects, into stone, is the food of the thunderbird, the chief of thebirds associated with the sky.' Moreover we find among the Indians ofNorth America a number of versions of Aesop's fable of the grateful eaglewhich we related above.8 We do not know if this story is traceable betweenIndia and North America, but in view of all our arguments it is much moreprobable that the connecting links have been lost than that the story wasinvented more than once.The eagle motive is of paramount importance in the civilizations ofCentral and South America appearing again with the same implicationsas in the Old World. The Cora-Indians, who belong to the linguistic familyof the Old Mexicans, have the following myth : in the West lives a powerfulsnake, symbol of the night, which is killed by the morning-star,and devouredby the eagle, the day-sky. The power of this belief was such that peopleenacted the overcoming of night by day in a magical ritual : they representedthis scene at dawn in mimic dances. The myth has it that the eagle lives at1About common myths and tales cf.Ehrenreich, Die Mythen und LegendenderSiidamerikanischenrvliker, 19o5 ("Zeitschriftf. Ethnol." XXXVII, Beiheft),p. 72ff., 84 ff.;the essays of Cooper, Kreichgauer and R6ckin FestschriftP. W. Schmidt,1928, and inAnthropos, XII/XIII, 1917/8, p. 272 ff. ondivination from the shoulder blades ofanimals, on remarkable identities in mythand imagery, and on the calender of CentralAmerica; Hornbostel in Anthropos I930, p.953 ff. on Chinese ideograms in America.2 W. Bogoras, "The Folklore of North-eastern Asia as compared with that ofNorthwestern America," AmericanAnthropo-logist, IV, 1902, pp. 577-683.

3 Ibid., p. 663-4 Ibid., p. 612.5Ibid., pp. 637 ff., 670. E. Erkes, "Chi-nesisch-amerikanische Mythenparallelen,"T'oung Pao, XXIV, 1926, p. 32 if.6 F. Webb Hodge, Handbookof AmericanIndiansnorthof Mexico("Smithsonian Inst.,"Bull. 30), 1907, p. 409 f.7Franz Boas, KwakiutlCulture s reflectednMythology "Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society" XXVIII), 1935, pp. 147, 157-8 F. Boas, TsimshianTexts ("SmithsonianInst.," Bull. 27), 1902, pp. I69 f., 241 f.J. R. Swanton, Myths and Tales of South-eastern ndians "SmithsonianInst.," Bull. 85),1929, P. 7 f.


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EAGLE AND SERPENT 305night near the fire, with which it is, in fact, identical.' As solar birdand bearer of the surname of the sun god, it rises to heaven at day-break and takes its place in the centre of the sky.2The conception of the old Mexicans is very similar. In the morningprayer the rising sun is invoked as an ascending eagle.3 The sun, thesupremedeity appears in the shape of an eagle and tears to pieces a snake anda rabbit, symbols of night-sky and moon.4 The scene is often representedin Mexican manuscripts (P1. 49 o).5 The same symbolism occurs in thestrange ritual of human sacrifices, the key-note of Mexican religion. Theheart and blood of the victim were offered to the sun-god in a bowl, withthe sign of the sun in its centre and a border, representing eagle feathers.Underneath the earth-monster is carved. Such bowls which the Mexicanscalled 'cup of the Eagle'6 are not rare in European collections.7 Thissacramental ritual was intended to increase the vigour of the sun and torejuvenate nature." The ritual is still more complicated, as the warriorswho offer the victims are themselves identified with eagles. The conventionaldesignation of brave warriorsis actually 'eagle',9 and there exist shields withthe image of the eagle holding a serpentin its beak,just as on Corinthianvases.10The eagle tearing a serpent whilst sitting on a nopal cactus is the oldemblem of the Mexicans. It is in fact the hieroglyph of the Aztec centreof civilisation, the town Mexico-Tenochtitlan, which was founded about1325A.D. A detailed analysishas shown that the name Mexico-Tenochtitlanis merely a designation of the old cosmologicalcontrast of sun and darkness."This national emblem has proved to be of extraordinary tenacity; it sur-vived the Spanish conquest of the sixteenth century, the short reign of theEmperor Maximilian (1864-67),12 and is still used at the present day by theMexican Republic as a coat-of-arms and on coins (P1. 54k),13 although ithas long lost its magic power.

1 Cf. above p. 303, note I.2 K. Th. Preuss, Die Nayarit-ExpeditionDie ReligionderCora-Indianer.Leipzig, 1912,pp. 50 f., I93 f. It is noticeable that thesnake appears as a water-snake, the oldidentification of night, underworld, andwater. Cf. p. 302, note 3.3 E. Seler, Codex Borgia, I904, I, p. 224.4 K. Th. Preuss, "Naturbeobachtungen inden Religionen des mexikanischen Kultur-kreises," Zeitschr. . Ethnologie,XLII, 19Io,p. 798. E. Seler, GesammeltebhandlungenV,1923, pp. 583-95 collected all the materialon the eagle available from Mexican andMaya MSS. Corresponding to the mythof the Cora-Indians the feather-snake is thesymbol of water. It should be recalled thatin many mythologies the rabbit is said tolive on the moon. Cf. Frobenius,Das Zeitalterdes Sonnengottes,1904, p. 356.5 Often the eagle only grips the rabbit withits talons, but in our plate 490 from the

Codex Borgia (Seler, op. cit., I9O6, II, P1. 52)

it tears both enemies with beak and talons.6 Seler, Ges. Abhdlg. II, p. 704 if.7Examples in Preuss, Mexikanische eligion("Bilderatlas zur Religionsgeschichte," ed.Haas, XVI), 1930, figs. 6, 7.8 Seler, Altmexikanischetudien, I ("Ver6f-fentlichungen aus dem Kgl. Museum f.V1lkerkunde" VI), 1899, pp. 172-183-9 Seler, Ges. Abhdlg.,IV, p. 583-10Zelia Nuttall, "On ancient MexicanShields," Internat.Archiv . Ethnographie, ,I892, p. 45.11 Hermann Beyer, "The original meaningof the Mexican coat of arms," El MexicoAntiguo, II, 1924-27, p. 192 ff.12Philatelists know the eagle stamps issuedby the Emperor Maximilian. Cf. S. Chap-man, The Eagle and Maximilian Stamps ofMexico, 1912; Charles J. Phillips, StanleyGibbonsLtd.pricedCatalogue f the 1856-1872issuesof Mexico, 1917.13The current Mexican peso bears thesymbol.


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306 RUDOLF WITTKOWERThe Incas, probably coming from the north, united the indigenoustribes of Peru. Connected as they were in many ways with the Aztecs ofMexico, their religion was based on sun worship and their government wasa theocracy founded on the divine kingship of the rulers who claimed tobe the direct representativesof the sun on earth. Manco Capac, the childof the sun and reputed founder of Inca civilisation (c. Iloo A.D.),1 wasjoined in his childhood by an eagle which never left him. This recallsmanyAsiatic legends, among which the most famous is the legend that Achamenes,the ancestor of the Persian dynasty, was brought up by an -eagle.2 The'Ganymede-motive' which was also known to the Indians of North Americasappears again in the Peruvian setting. The life of Manco Capac's grand-father was saved by an eagle which carried him away in its talons.4 Theeagle in Peru is clearly a solar symbol.The Inca tradition also incorporatesthe fight between eagle and snake.A Peruvian legend recalls that the Inca Pachacutec (i5th centuryA.D.) oncevanquished an enemy tribe with the help of an eagle which descended fromheaven and overcame the snake, the supporter of the enemy.5 Whether ornot these two animals should be regarded as totems, the fact remains thatthrough the eagle the child of the sun achieves victory over evil ifi the shapeof the snake.When Columbus landed on the coast of Costa Rica, he saw the nativeswearing necklaces of gold in the form of eagles, lions and other animals.Modern excavations in the South of Costa Rica (Talamanca) have yieldedmany of these amulets, among which appear eagles carrying in theirbeaks serpents shaped like lightning6 (P1. 49P). Traces of sun-worshipwere discovered by early travellers in these regions, which, being placedhalf way between the Mayas of the North and the Inca Empire of the South,were influenced by these highly developed civilisations.7 It seems thereforejustifiable to associate the eagle and snake amulets with sun-worship.The reader will have noticed that in discussingthe occurrence of the eaglesymbolism in America we have been dealing with relatively late dates, and,

x Clements R. Markham, The Incas ofPeru, 1910o, p. 95-2 The prototype s thelegend of the Babylon-ian hero Gilgamesch who was saved by aneagle. For the many dynasties the originof which is connected with the eagle cf. Rei-nach in Revue archdologique, 1907, p. 69.Keller, op. cit., p. 240. Thompson, A Glos-sary of GreekBirds, I936, p. 7.3Cf. F. Boas, "The use of Masks andHead-ornaments on the North-West coastof America," Internationales rchiv dr Ethno-graphie,III, I89o, p. Io, and Boas, KwakiutlCulture, p. cit., p. 158. For an idea of thedissemination of the motive in Asia cf.Jastrow'smaterialdrawn mainly from Persianand Arabic sources (Journal Amer. OrientalSoc., XXX, 1910, p. 128). For a possible

way of migration to the East, cf. abovep. 301, note 2.4 Philip Ainsworth Means, AncientCivilisa-tions of Peru, I931, p. 211 ff.5 Clements R. Markham, Narrativesof theRites and Laws of the Yncas,London, 1883,pp. 12 f., 96.6 Cf. below p. 309, note 2.SSeler, Gesammeltebhandlungen,II, p.689.Thomas A. Joyce, CentralAmerican nd WestIndian Archeology, 1916, pp. 100, I22 f. Thelatter publishes also a wooden idol from theGreater Antilles in the British Museum(P1. 20), representing a bird pecking at atortoise which might stand for the samesymbolism as eagle and snake, the tortoisebeing in many myths a representation of

the earth.


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EAGLE AND SERPENT 307in view of the earlier migration of such symbols, which we have traced fromWestern Asia through India to Polynesia on the one hand, through Scythiato Eastern Siberia on the other, it seems likely that these symbols travelledslowly to America along these routes. Although so far we have been dealingwith scattered and fragmentary material, we have been able to show thatthe meaning of our symbol varied in different contexts, that the eagle couldbe the bird of kingship as well as of prophecy, of magic as well as of mantic,an attribute of the sun as well as a symbol of resurrection, that its strugglewith the serpent could denote earthly victory or triumph on a more cosmicscale. But when we turn to more recent historyand examine the occurrenceof the same symbols in European culture since classical times, we shall beable to determine with much greater exactness the variationsin their meaning-remembering, however, that all these variations are linked up by a singlebasic idea : the struggle of eagle and serpent always represents the fun-damental opposition of light and darkness, good and evil.12. Greece and Rome

If we now turn to the Mediterranean world, we are faced with a numberof puzzling problems. Classical archaeologists have collected the relevantmaterial in Greece and Rome,2 but without always offering satisfying inter-pretations. In the following notes I shall only attempt to suggest possiblesolutions for some few of the vast number of recorded instances of eaglesymbolism.In Greek mythology the eagle is the only bird of strictly divine character.3In a chapter entitled "The Sun as the Birdof Zeus" Cook4arguesconvincinglythat in early Greek belief the sun was already conceived as a bird. Cookalso proves that in pre-Hellenic times Zeus, before becoming the anthropo-morphic individual sky-god of the Greeks,was the animate Sky itself.5 It istrue that in early Greek religion there was no room for a proper solar cult.Only after the supersession of demons and earthgods by the Olympiansdoes the sky become the centre of the anthropomorphic Greek Pantheon.And the eagle finds its place by the side of the sky-god Zeus. The conceptionof the eagle as bearer of the thunderbolt and as carrier of lightning and fire1 Wensinck, Treeand Bird as cosmological

Symbols n Western sia (Verhdl. Kon. Akad.van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam) i 921,p. 46 f. identifieseagle and serpent as repre-sentations of two of the mightiest cosmicentities, the sun and the ocean. Cf. abovep. 302, note 3, and p. 305, note 2.2 C. A. B6ttiger, Ideenzur Kunst-Mythologie,1826, II, pp. 31-46. Ludolf Stephani inCompte-Rendue a CommissionmpirialeArchio-logique pour l'Annie 1862, St. Petersburg,pp. 17-21. Karl Sittl, "Der Adler und dieWeltkugel," Jahrbiicheriir classische hilologie.Supplement XIV, 1884, pp. I-51, particularlyp. 8f. Otto Keller, Thiere des classischen

Alterthums, 887, pp. 236-76, particularlyp. 246 ff. Cumont, "Masque deJupiter surun aigle 6ploy6," FestschriftfiirOttoBenndorf,1898, pp. 291-95. Erich Ktister, Die Schlangein dergriechischenKunst undReligion,Giessen,1913, P. 127 ff. A. Roes, Greek GeometricArt.Its Symbolismnd its Origin, 1933, P- 53 f.D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, A Glossary fGreekBirds, London, 1936, p. 216.3 Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopaedie,.v."Adler," p. 373. Keller, op. cit., p. 238.4 Zeus. A Study n ancientReligion.I, 1914,p. 341 ff.5 Ibid., I, p. I ff., II (1925), p. I ff.


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308 RUDOLF WITTKOWER(rvpopdposo),1so familiar to us with the bird of Zeus, is a common denominatorin a great many civilisations.But the eagle is not only the attribute of Zeus; it is often identified withthe god.2 This identification confirms the view that the eagle was originallythe sky. An old myth supports this view; it relates that Zeus in the formof an eagle came from his birthplace in Crete to Naxos.3 It is also temptingto relate the eagle cult in Asia Minor to that of Greece.4 Just as the eaglestood on top of a column next to the altar in the temple at Tell Halaf,5 sobefore the altar of Zeus on Mount Lykaion were two columns with figures ofgilded eagles facing the sunrise.6There are other instances pointing to the early association of the eaglewith light. In Aeschylus' Suppliants212 f.) the sun is invoked as the birdof Zeus. In popular belief the eagle still haunts the heights of Olympus asa symbol of the sun.7The eagle is also in Greece and Rome the bird of divination parexcellence.8We have here again the old double nature of the eagle as bird of light andbird of magic common to many civilizations.9 These two sides are reflectedin Greek literature in the fight of the eagle with the snake.The fighting motive occurs for the first time in the Iliad (xII, 20o f.),here with a specifically mantic meaning. An eagle with a snake in its beakappears above the heads of the Trojans while they assault the ships of theGreeks. The snake liberates itself from the claws of the bird, and falls intothe Trojan lines. This is taken as a bad omen, and, in fact, the attack on theship fails. Aristophanes still uses the same symbol for a political oracle,but makes a travesty of it (Knights,197if.). In the mystic atmosphereof lateGreek civilization the magic power attached to this symbol is strange enoughto be explicitly mentioned. Apollonius of Tyana (2nd century A.D.) triesto get rid of a snake plague by putting on a column the figure of an eaglewith a snake in its claws. In a rite of sympathetic magic he employs thesymbol of the good to overcome the evil.10 As the bird of magic the eagleis especially significant in the interpretation of dreams.11 These qualitieshave an inexhaustible underground life in folklore. Eagle and snake orbird and monster survive in the books of dreams of the Middle Ages.12

1 Ibid., II, p. 351 f., with furtherreferences,and p. 777f. Cumont, Et. Syr., op. cit.,p. 58. Cf. also above p. 303, note I.2 Cook, op. cit., I, pp. 83, 105, 116, etc.,II, I88 f.3 Ibid., I, p. I64.4 A definite connection of Hittite monu-ments with Proto-Corinthian vases (middle7th century B.C.) has been established byHumfry Payne, Necrocorinthia,I931, p. 67 f.5 Cf. above p. 297, note 3.6 Cook, op. cit., I, p. 66.7Ibid., pp. 103-4-8 Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopedie,.v."Adler" p. 373. Keller, op. cit., p. 245 f.Ludwig Hopf, Thierorakelund Orakelthiere,Stuttgart, 1888, pp. 87-92. Thompson, op.cit., p. 7 ff.

9 Cf. above p. 295, note 3, PP- 302, 304.10Nicetas Choniates, De statuis Constant.(Migne, P. Gr. I39, I050). Nicetas saw themonument in the hippodrome of Constan-tinople, and it is significant in our contextthat the wings of the eagle were made to beused as a sundial. For his miracleApolloniuswas probably inspired by the Brazen Serpent.Moses made use of a similar magic procedurein which, however, the image of the serpentitself is the agent of healing.1xPauly-Wissowa, p. 373. Keller, p. 246.12 Cf. a German Book of Dreams, MS ofthe I5th century, Brit. Mus., Add. I5696.The text accompanied by a picture tells thatif one dreams of a bird vanquishing a dragonone may consider oneself generous and kind(P1. 54f).


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EAGLE AND SERPENT 309It is instructive to compare a Roman tale in Dio Cassius' with Homer'snarrative. In Caesar's fight against the younger Pompey the eagles ofPompey's legions dropped golden thunderbolts from their talons into hiscamp, and then flew off to the camp of Caesar, thus indicating that thevictory would be with the latter. Here the thunderbolts bring destruction,like the snake in Homer. In both cases the bird of victory carries the symbolof defeat. This parallelismof snake and thunderboltpoints back to a magicalstage in which the zigzag form of the snake made it the natural equivalentfor lightning.2In its classical period Greek civilization evolved a scientific naturalhistory. Aristotle3 states that eagle and snake are enemies and that theeagle feeds on the snake. But besides this scientific statement we can see inAristotle a survival of the old association of the eagle with light and sky.For he goes on to say that the eagle flies to great heights in order to have awide view. This is the reason, he says, why this bird alone is held by manto be the bird of the gods.There exist a number of scattered early monuments showing the fightof eagle and snake. In the versions on Minoan4 and early Greek engravedstones (P1.49e)5 the struggle can only have talismanic significance. At amuch later period, according to literary tradition,6 King Areos of Spartaused a signet-ring with this symbol as a protective amulet: evil (snake) isto be warded off by the magic effect of the picture.In a special case it seems possible to show that in early Greek thoughtthe eagle was connected with the souls of the dead. The famous bronzehydria of Grachwil (near Berne),7 the product of a Greek workshop of the6th century B.C., has a handle decorated with the 'Great Mother', theMistress of Animals of oriental origin. To the left and right of her headare chthonic snakes, and on her head stands the eagle (P1.50f), a uniquefeature which can only be explained through the function of the vessel asa cinerary urn.8There are two larger groups of objects showing the fight of' eagle andsnake. In the first, consisting of Corinthian vases of the 6th century, thedevice occurs with its mantic significance. The eagle alone, or eagle andserpent, are the accompaniment of the departing warrior,9 or appear

1 Roman History XLIII, 35 (Loeb Class.Libr. IV, p. 275).2 Cf. Warburg'sarticle in the present issue,p. 280.3 Hist. anim. IX, I, 2 and 32, 6. Forsimilar statements of other ancient writers, cf.Thompson, op.cit., pp. 3, 5.

4 There was certainly no proper eagle cultin Crete during the 2nd millenium, althougheagles occasionally occur on Minoan cylindersand gems under Hittite influence. Cf.Evans, Palace of Minos, III, 1930, p. 411;IV, 2, p. 451. Fr. Matz, Die frahkretischenSiegel, 1928, pp. 6I f., 65 ff. with furtherreferences.

6 Ktister, op. cit., p. 129. Ch. Waldstein,Argive Heraeum, II, 1905, p. 35o, No. 59 :a steatite cylinder, c. Ioth century B.C.Furtwangler, AntikeGemmen, 900, Pls. VI,23, 25 (possibly Mycenean, but found inAkra, N.W. India), LXI, 17 (5th century).6Josephus, Ant. Jud., XII, 4, I0o.SCf. Neugebauer in Archdologischer n-zeiger, I925, p. I83.8 Cf. above p. 298.9 W. Wrede in AthenischeMitteilg. XLI,1916, p. 296 ff. It was considered a goodomen when the eagle killed his prey. Forreferences cf. Stephani, op. cit., p. I8.


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31o RUDOLF WITTKOWERhovering above the head of the seer'-omens, as in the story of the Iliad.And when the Greek warrior decorated his shield with the symbol, it wasto attract victory by an act of sympathetic magic: as the eagle kills the snake,so the warrior will slay his enemies (P1. 51i).2 In such cases the symbol isrelevant to the story told on the vase, but when it occurs as the onlydecoration (P1. 5zh) it is related directly to the spectator in an apotropaicsense, like the contemporary 'eye-cups.'3 It is, of course, difficult to decidewhen the device has sunk to the stage of pure ornament.The second group in which the symbol frequently appears consists ofcoins of Greek cities particularly between the 6th and 3rd centuries B.C.(P1.51g).4 There are reasonsfor supposing that in this context it was oftenused to bring about or to preservepolitical or athletic victory.5 This is obviousin coins from Elis in which Nike appearson the reverse;in coins from Cyrene,which show the eagle-snake symbol on one side and the quadriga on theother; and in coins from Agrigentum, in which eagle and snake hover abovethe quadriga.6 Sophocles in the AntigoneI io ff.) employs the fight of eagleand snake as a simile for the fighting armies and it was even used in the samesense by Horace in the famous fourth ode (book IV). In modern times theimage is still used as a symbol of victory and as a political emblem; it con-veyed the same meaning to the enlightened Greekcommunitiesof the classicalperiod, though the mantic implications seem still to be quite alive.7In the Roman Empire too the eagle had a political and military bearing.The eagle of the legions is the emblem of Roman power and majesty.8 Whenthe conquest of the snake by the eagle appears on the Triumphal Arch atPola (P1.5Ik)9 it is an emblem of victory and triumph. In this case one can

1 Wrede, p. 272: on the Amphiaraos-kraterin Berlin. Cf. also Buschor,Griechischeasen-malerei, 921, fig. 67. Cf. the symbol on theAttic Amphiaraos-vase of the 5th centuryin Athens, publ. by Benndorf and Niemann,Das Heroon onGjilbaschi-Trysa, 889, p. 196,fig. 157.2 Amphora from Vulci, c. 550-500 B.C.,Brit. Mus., B 194. Shield of Geryon, froma representation of Herakles' fight withGeryon.3 Examples in Savignoni in Amer.Journalof Archeol.V, 1901, p. 413 f., Kiaster, op. cit.,p. 52 f., Schweitzer in Athen. Mitteilg., 1918,p. 44, H. Payne, op. cit., p. 76.-Typical forthe apotropaic significance of the symbol isits use as an akroterion,still in Roman times.Cf.H.von Rohden, Die TerrakottenonPompeji,I88o, pl. 13, 3-4Cf. particularly coins of the followingtowns: in the Peloponnes Elis, in EuboeaChalkis, in AEgea Aphrodisias, in BithyniaNicodemia, in Thrace and MacedoniaAbdera, Olynthus and Pydna, in BruttiumHipponium, in Cyrenaica Cyrene, in SicilyAgrigentum and Morgantia, in Samnium

Aesernia. Cf. Imhoof-Blumer and OttoKeller, Tier-undPflanzenbilderuf MiinzenundGemmen,Leipzig, 1889, P1. IV, V, XX;Stephani, op.cit., p. 18; Barclay V. Head,HistoriaNumorum.Oxford, 1911.5 The eagle traditionally announcesvictory.Cf. Keller, Thiered. class.Alt., op.cit., p. 244 f.6 Other coins stress the solar character ofthe bird. They show the thunderbolt orZeus himself on the other side (Elis) or theeagle with the serpent flying towards a statueof Zeus Lycaeus (Cyrene).SAn astronomical interpretation of thecoins has been attempted by Thompson, op.cit., p. 13-8 Keller, op. cit., p. 242 if.9First century A.D. Cf. E. L6wy, "DieAnfange des Triumphbogens," Jahrbuchd.kunsthist.Sammlg.WienII, 1928, p. 2, fig. 3.It is worth mentioning that the symbolalso occurs on Roman-British coins of thetime of Tiberius. Cf. J. Evans, The Coinsof the AncientBritons, I864, pp. I19, 281,P1.VIII, 13, 14 and Supplement,890, p. 505,P1. XIX, I, XX, 8.


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51

a-Etana upon the b-Zeus upon the Eagle. c-Apotheosis of Antoninus d-Tomb of Q.Eagle. Babylonian Hadrianic Coin from Pius. Coin (p. 311) Pomponius Eudemon.Cylinder (p. 295) Alexandria (p. 3II1) Vatican (p. 3I1)

e-Christ above theEagle. Detail from f - Apotheosis ofthe Antioch Chalice King Airlanga. Ja-4/5th cent. A. D. vanese Sculpture. c.(P-12) 1043A.D.p. 00)

g-Greek Coin fromElis. 5th cent. B.C.Ae--ChristBlack-figuredaseabovet6thcent. B.C. British Museum

(P" 312),

IO43 A.D.3p. 300)

h-Corinthian Vase.Heidelberg (p. 310)

from the Triumphal Arch at 1--Mosaic, Great Palace, Constantinople.Ist cent. A.D. (p. 31o) c. 4oo A.D. (p. 318)


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EAGLE AND SERPENT 311still discoveran apotropaicecho-just as in the coins of Greek cities-but whenthe symbol appears on the base of the Farnese Bull it seems to have becomea pure emblem. Zethos and Amphion bind Dirke to the horns of the bullbecause she had tormented their mother. She must now suffer death atthe hands of the righteous as the evil snake is killed by the eagle.'But the symbol plays a more important part in the religious sphere.The eagle is the bird of apotheosis and resurrection. As Jupiter is carriedaloft by the eagle2 (P1.5Ib) so the soul of the deified emperor is carried byhim to heavens (P1.5Ic). But this device is not limited to the emperor; it alsooccurs on Roman tombstones (Pl. 5Id),4 and when it is replaced by the fightbetween eagle and snake5it signifies the triumph of the heavenly realm overthe dark chthonic forces (P1. 5ok). The occurrence of the symbol on thefamous sarcophagus in S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura is particularly instructive(P1. 50g). Cumont6 has shown that the bacchic representations on thegroup of sarcophagi to which it belongs, illustrate the Dionysiac enthusiasmat the prospectof eternal happiness in heaven. The small eagle-snakedevicewhich accompanies the large Bacchic scenes must stand for some such ideaas the victorious liberation of the soul.7This sarcophagus also shows the source of these ideas. It was made inAthens at the beginning of the 3rd centuryA.D. on the basisof Syrianmodels.8On Syrian soil Hellenistic religion was the vehicle for the revival of oldAsiatic solar conceptions. In the Greco-Roman age the local SemiticBaals were everywhere assimilated to and identified with Zeus,9 and Zeuswas transformed from the Sky-god to the Sun-god so that his eagle becamethe bird of Helios (P1.5ob, d).10 Under this spell even the HebrewJehovahwas turned into a solar Zeus; the Jews of the Dispersion called their godTheos Hypsistos,"and represented him as an eagle.12 And just as in theMithraic liturgy the initiate enter heaven as eagles,13 the bird of Helios is

1 According to Pliny (nat.hist.XXXV, 28)Philochares made a painting of two Romanswith eagle and snake hovering above theirheads-probably a devotional picture with agood omen.2 Sittl, op.cit., 37 f., Cumont, Et. Syr.,p. 8I.3Ibid., p. 72 ff., Keller, op. cit., p. 252,Cook, Zeus, II, p. 1132 ff.4 Cumont, p. 85 f.6 W. Altmann, Rdmische GrabaltdrederKaiserzeit, I905, Nos. 8, 81, I8o; Esp6ran-dieu, Recueilgdndralde la Gaule, I, No. 491,cf. also I, No. 361, III, 2207, VI, No. 4921,IX, Nos. 6962, 6995.6 Syria, X, 1929, p. 217 ff.7About the eagle as symbol of the soul cf.also Newbold in American ournalof Archeol.XXIX, 1925, P. 36I ff.8 Rodenwaldt, "Der Klinensarkophag vonS. Lorenzo," Jahrb. d. Archdol.nst. 45, 1930,pp. 116-89, P1. 6.9R. Dussaud, Notes de MythologieSyrienne,

Paris, 1903, p. I8 f., Cook, op.cit., I, p. 186 ff.

10 The bronze P1.5ob of an eagle with theinscription "Helios" published by Dussaud,op. cit., p. 23; P1. 5o0d, a relief from Su-weida in Syria (publ. by Dunand in SyriaVII, 1926, p. 331, P1. LXV) represents theeagle-Zeus with the chthonic snake in itstalons accompanied by Azizos and Monimos,the personified starsof morning and evening.The bronze disk, published by Cumont(Festschr. iir Benndorf,loc. cit.), with thePhoenician Baal-laminin the mask of Zeuson the wings of the eagle which seizes thecoiled snake of eternity, proves that the oldpictorial formula of the enmity betweeneagle and snake holds good, although inthis case both creatures together determinethe special character of the Lord of Heavenand Eternity.11Cook, op. cit., II, p. 888 f.12 Cumont, "Un Ex-Voto au Th6os Hypsi-stos," Bull. de l'Acad. royale de Belgique, 1912,p. 251 If.

13 Cumont, Et. Syr., op. cit., p. 56 f.


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312 RUDOLF WITTKOWERendowed with the task of carrying the soul of the deceased up to the sun."Tombstones with representationsof the eagle occur often in Levantine artfrom the 3rd century B.C. onwards,2 and even in Arabia.3 These tombsalso show the bird killing the snake (P1.50i)4 or both creatures separately,5symbols which can only stand for the deliverance of the soul from earthlychains. Diodorus' description of the pyre prepared by Alexander the Greatfor the body of Hephaistion must be interpreted in this sense : on the secondstory of the pyre there were eagles bending down towards snakes.6The varied use made of the eagle-snake symbol in the Graeco-Romanworld may seem puzzling at first. Yet it is not difficult to explain how thesame sign can assume at the same time a supernaturaland a distinctlyworldlymeaning. Both uses have their roots in primitive magic and ritual. Bothare based on the belief in the practical efficacy of symbols. Since materialvictory and spiritual salvation are not distinguished, the same sign if paintedon a shield will bring victory in battle, and if carved on a tombstone willsecure immortality. Moreover, the simultaneous use of the symbol fordivination on the one hand, and for victory on the other, can be understoodas implied in the natural development of society. Frazer has shown thatthe king in many parts of the world is the lineal successor of the magicianin primitive society;7 therefore the eagle as the sign of magicians and kingsis identical, and the magician overcoming the powers of darkness is inanother stage of society equivalent to the king vanquishing his enemies.

3. The Christian nterpretationChristianity, which grew up in the midst of the Syrian solar cults, turned

the eagle symbolism into a specificallyChristianformula.8 The actual iden-tification of Christ with the sun, and therefore with the eagle, became anintegral part of patrologicaland later theological literature.9 On the Antiochchalice (c. 4-5th century A.D.) Christ is enthroned with the eagle under hisfootstool,like a newJupiter (P1.51e).10 And the eagle appearsas a hieroglyphfor Christ in a great many oriental capitals of the 5th and 6th centuries A.D.,as well as on mosaics and sarcophagi of the same period. Together with1 Cf. particularlyDussaud, op.cit., p. 23 f.f"Hdlios psychopompe." Cumont, p. 62 f.2 Cumont, p. 39 ff.3Jaussen et Savignac, Missionarchdologique

en Arabie ("Publ. de la Societe des FouillesArcheologiques"), Paris, I909, I, PP.325 f.,345 ff., 370 ff., 398 ff., II, P1. XL-XLV.The style of all these tombs, dating from thebeginning of our era, is Hellenistic.4Keil and Premerstein, "Bericht tibereine Reise in Lydien," Denkschr. . kais.Akad.Wien, LIII, 19o8, p. 46, no. 94 : Steledatable 159-8 B.C.5 In the Arabic tombs of Mediur-Saleh(east of the Red Sea) the eagle stands abovethe pediment in which two snakes attacka human mask, an old symbol of death.6 Cumont, op. cit., pp. 73, 83. He also

discusses the adaptation of this story in theRomance of Alexander. About the eaglecult of Alexander cf. particularly Keller, op.cit., p. 241 f.7 GoldenBough. The Magic Art, I, p. 371.8 It is worth mentioning that the Mani-cheans believed that Christ himself dwelt inthe sun. Cf. F. Chr. Baur, Das ManichdischeReligionssystem, 1831, p. 208.9 E.g. Pseudo-Ambrose, SermonesMigne,Patr. Lat. 17, 694 f.) : "Aquilam in hoc locoChristum Dominum nostrum debemus acci-pere." Cf. also Pitra, Spicilegium olesmense,I855, II, pp. 60-65, 480 ff. Cf. also nextpage.10 Guillaume de Jerphanion, Le Caliced'An-tioche "Orientalia Christiana" VII, I926).


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EAGLE AND SERPENT 313other symbols of faith, victory and eternity it occurs on innumerable Coptictombstones where, with reference to the Psalm (1o3, v. 5) : "thy youth isrenewed like the eagle's," the old idea of resurrectionand salvation lives on.'But Christian eagle symbolism covers a much wider range of meaning.A number of different ideas current in the Hellenistic world were taken upby the Christiansand adapted to the exposition of their faith. In reviewingthe situation one finds that round the eagle four main subjectswere evolved.The GreekPhysiologus, collection of animal taleswith Christianallegorisa-tions probably brought together in Egypt in the 2nd century A.D., containsthe following story about the eagle : When he grows old, his flight becomesheavy and his eyesight dim. He first seeksa pure spring of water, then fliesaloft towards the sun, burns off his old feathers and the film over his eyes.Finally he flies down to the spring, dives into it three times, thereby renewinghimself and becoming young again. This curious story is used as a similefor man : when the eyes of his heart are grown dull, he should fly aloft tothe sun of righteousness,Jesus Christ, and rejuvenate himself in the everflowing spring of penance in the name of the Father, the Son, and the HolyGhost.2 This is meant as an interpretation of the words of the psalmmentioned above : "so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's."This same text was also accompanied by another legend. In Augustine'scommentary on the Psalm3 we read : "In a way suggested by nature hedashes his beak against a rock and smashes off the encumbrance, and soreturns to his food; in everything he is restored, so that he becomes young.Hence, thy youth shall be renewed like the eagle's." The rock is Christ(I Cor. X, 4) and he is the means of resurrection.

Still another quality of the eagle occurs in early Christian literature,prominently in Ambrose's Hexaemeron4c. 389). He tells us that the eaglerears only one of its two eaglets and kills the other. He rejects Aristotle'sopinion that this is done because the eagle is too mean to feed two offspring;he quotes Moses5 as his testimony for the eagle's sense of pity. Ambroseargues that the eagle flies with its young into the rays of the sun to findout which of them is the true offspring and which the changeling. The birdthat cannot endure to look into the glaring light will die, and its death istherefore actually brought about by the eagle's intrepidity.In the Pseudo-Ambrose'sSermones e find the story of the eagle and thesnake. The devouring of the snake by the eagle is interpreted as a similefor Christ overcoming Satan.6

1Extensive material presented in Jer-phanion's book, pp 136-45. About theeagle as an early Christian symbol of resur-rection cf. also Newbold in Am. Journ. ofArcheol. XXIX, I925, PP- 357 ff., 379;Dussaud in Syria VI, 1925, p. 203 f.2 Friedrich Lauchert, Geschichte des Physio-logus, I889, p. 9 f.3 Migne P. L., XXXVII, I323. Thesame story in Cassiodorus, cf. Lauchert,op. cit., p. 95, and in other commentaries

on the Psalm.

4 Liber 5, caput I8,6o (P. L. 14, 231). Thesame story referred to in Ambrose, In Psalm.CXVIII expos. (P. L., 15, 1473); Pseudo-Ambrose, Sermones(P. L., 17, 695); Tertul.,De Anim. (P. L., 2, 658); Augustine, in Joann.Evang. tract. XXXVI, 18, 5 (P. L., 35, 1666).6 Deut. XXXII, 11 : "As an eagle stirrethup her nest, fluttereth over her young,spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them,beareth them on her wings."6P. L. I7, 695 : "Et sicut avis ista (sc.aquila) inimica serpentum est, quos dum in


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314 RUDOLF WITTKOWERThese are the four main aspectsof the eagle symbolism in early Christianliterature: the bathing in the Fountain of Life, and the sharpening ofthe beak, which stand for rejuvenation through baptism and penance; the

flight towards the sun as a symbol of intrepidity, or in other words of theunshakable belief in Christ; and the fight against the snake as the victoryof Christ over Satan.The Physiologustory of rejuvenationis made up of at least three differentmain motives : the preliminary flying towards the sun,' fall and rebirth,and the "pure spring." The Water of Life is one of the universal mythsfamiliar in the Near East for thousands of years. Fall and resurrection-for the rejuvenation of the Physiologuss a spiritual resurrection-has alsoa long history in the East. We may call to mind the Etana myth wherethis motive occurs in another setting.2 But the whole idea is a direct off-shoot of the pagan designation of the eagle as the bird of resurrection.Our second tale about the bending of the eagle's beak with growingage occurs in Aristotle's HistoriaAnimalium.3 But according to him the birdmust die of starvation. This storyis of Egyptian origin, as we find it in Ho-rapollo4: "Desiring to represent an old man, dying of hunger, they paint aneagle with its beak extremely hooked; for as it grows old its beak becomesextremely hooked, and it dies of hunger."The passage of the Psalm on which both rejuvenation tales commentmust be an adaptation of the old Egyptian legend of the miraculous Phoenixwhich renews its youth every 500 years.Although we can thus trace antecedents of the two rejuvenationallegoriestheir composite epic character limits their use to the Christian world. Thisis also partly true with the story of the eagle's flight towards the sun totest its offspring. The tale actually consists of two different parts : the solarflight and the test, and this must be a relatively late fusion. It is also perhapsfirst to be found in Egypt;5 it is related by Aristotle, and later by Pliny,Aelian and many other ancient writers.6 From these sources the combinedmotives migrate into the writings of a great many Christian authors.The solar flight alone has a much longer pedigree. In a way the solarflight of the eagle and its fight against the serpent are two sides of the sameproblem. The solar flight and the gazing into the sun symbolise the sun-nature of the eagle,' and the fight with the snake the victory over the powersof darkness.aere alarum remigio subvectando supportat,hos obunco rostro, et armatis quasi quibus-dam telis, pedibus suis lacerat ac divellit;quos cum devorat... ita ergo et ChristusDominus unam diligit Ecclesiam, ut aquilanidum suum... Et ut aquila serpentesdevorat... ita et Christus Dominus noster,percusso dracone, id est, diabolo lacerato,quod humanum sibi corpus assumit, pecca-tum illud quod hominem tenebat obnoxium,tamquam perniciosum virus exstinxit."1 This motive by itself will be dealt withbelow.2 Hiising, "Zum Etanamythos," Archiviir

Religionswissenschaft VI, 1903, PP. 178-I9Ishows the survival of the myth in Iranianlegends and follows it up into still currentfairy tales. Cf. also Handwirterbuches deut-schen Mdirchens, I930-33, I, p. I6.3 IX, 32, 4. Pliny, Nat. hist. X, 15 andother ancient authors repeat Aristotle'sreport.4 HieroglyphicaI, 96.5 Cf. Keller, Thiere,op.cit., p. 268; Thomp-son, p. 9.6 The texts collected by Keller, loc. cit.,Cumont, Et. Syr.,p. 58, Thompson, pp. 8, 9.7 We have mentioned above p. 296 that


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EAGLE AND SERPENT 315In contrast to the eagle-snake motive the dissemination of the threeother eagle-motives ensuesprimarily through literary channels. In the laterrevisions of the Physiologusall three motives occur together. From theearly sources they migrate singly or together into the bestiaries of the laterMiddle Ages.' Another way of filtration is through the encyclopaedists,from Isidore and Rabanus Maurus to Vincent of Beauvais and BrunettiLatini. A last channel is formed by the histories of natural science whichsince the I3th century (Thomas of Cantimprd and Albertus Magnus) takeup the tradition of Aristotle and Pliny but always mingle it with featuresof the Christian animal tales. From now on the popular animal tales liveside by side with learned works. But there exist many transitions,for a greatnumber of authors tried to combine both trends. This type of literatureends in the late I6th and I7th centuries with the erudite works of Gesner,Aldrovandi (P1. 541) and Bochart2 who in an encyclopaedic attempt suchas has never been undertaken since collected an enormous mass of materialabout the eagle, scientific as well as legendary, from Christian, ancientand even Arabic sources.3

in Egypt the falcon was supposed to gazeunharmed into the sun. Eagle representat-ions of many different peoples are certainlymeant to show the bird flying aloft towardsthe sun.1Cf. Mdlangesd'Archiologie, 'Histoireet deLittdratureI, 1851, p. I64 ff.2 Conrad Gesner, Historia Animalium.Frankfort, 1586, II, pp. 168-207, UlisseAldrovandi, Ornithologia, Bologna, 1599,Libri I, II, pp. 17-234, Samuel Bochart,Hierozoiciivebipartiti perisdeAnimalibuscrip-turae,London, 1663, II, pp. 162-185.3The rarest of the three motives is that ofthe bending of the beak. It occurs inRabanus (De univ. VIII, 6) in Hildebert'sPhysiologus (c. 1135, P. L. I71, 1217), inHugo de Folieto (De bestiis, I, 56), andalso in Alexander Neckham, AlbertusMagnus, Vincent of Beauvais, BrunettiLatini, but not often in later literature andthe arts. Allusions in Elizabethan literature,on which the Physiologusas left an importantmark (the relevant material has been collect-ed by H. H6hna, Der Physiologusin derelisabethanischeniteratur,Erlangen, 1930 andP. Ansell Robin, Animal Lore in EnglishLiterature, 1932, p. I59 ff.). But that thesymbol remained alive is proved by such arepresentation as that on the frontispiece ofthe Biblia SacracumglossisN. Lyrani (Venice,1588), where an eagle is shown sharpeningits beak on a rock in the water, with thequotation from Psalm 103, 5.The diving into the fountain is traceablethrough many Physiologus ersions (cf. Max

Goldstaub and Richard Wendriner, EinTosco-Venezianischer estiarius, Halle, 1892,p. 386); it occursalreadyinpatristic literature(Origen, Jerome, cf. Lauchert, pp. 71, 77)and later in such works as BartholomewGlanvil's encyclopaedia (De proprietatibusrerumXII, i), or popular manuals of naturalscience and medicine, such as the HortusSanitatis(De avibus I). It can be traced inGerman mediaeval literature (cf. Lauchert,p. 193), in English literature from Caxton'sMirrour of the World to Lyly's Euphues,Dekker's Wonderof a Kingdom, Spenser'sFaerie Queeneand Shakespeare's Henry IV.A pictorial type, appearing first in the GreekPhysiologuscf. Strzygowski,Der Bilderkreis esgriech. Physiologus,1899, p. 28 of MS) isalmost limited to the long series of mediaevalbestiaries, particularly from the I2th to theI4th centuries. (cf. M. R. James, TheBestiary. Oxford, I928, p. 43, fol. 3Ia).From here the motive spreads into suchworks as an Austrian book of models of theI3th century (Vienna, Nat. Bibl. cod. 507,f. 3v, cf. H. J. Hermann, Die deutschen oma-nischenHandschr.Beschreibendeserz.d. illum.Handschr.in OesterreichVIII,, 2.' 1926, No.231, P1. 41), into the illustrations of Psalters(cf. A. Goldschmidt, Der Albanipsalter nHildesheim, 895, p. I16, fig. 34) and into thesculptural ornamentation of churches (cf.G. C. Druce in TheAntiquary, 914, P. 250).For the occurrence of the motive in Arabicliterature, cf. Wensinck, Tree and Bird Cult,op.cit., p. 38 f.

Of much wider importance than the two


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316 RUDOLF WITTKOWERThe only motive readily expressible n visual terms, the fightof eagle andsnake, although described in a number of ancient authors from Aristotle to

former symbols is the flight into the sun andthe test of the eaglets. From patristic sources(cf. Keller, op. cit., p. 268) it passed throughIsidore (Ethym.XII, 7, 11), Rabanus (Deuniv. VIII, 6) into the bestiaries, encyclop-aedias and collections of exempla (cf.

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Witkower Eagle and Serpent