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The Serpent Column and the talismanic ecologies of Byzantine Constantinople

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2020

Andrew Griebeler
Andrew Griebeler*
Affiliation:
University of Southern Californiagriebele@usc.edu
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Abstract

This study examines how the Serpent Column in Constantinople came to be recognized as a talisman against snakes and snakebites in the 1390s. It first gives a working definition of what a talisman was in Byzantium. It shows that, despite the co-existence of different ideas of what talismans were, they share the basic principle that the talisman acts within a broader network of non-human forces and entities. Second, it shows how contemporaries used this understanding of talismans when they began to recognize the Serpent Column as a talisman.

Keywords

Serpent Columnhippodrometalismansoccult scienceConstantinople
Type
Articles
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , April 2020 , pp. 86 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham, 2020

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References

1 This article is based on a paper that was presented at the 103rd Annual Conference of the College Arts Association, New York, 14 February 2015. It has benefited from the advice and suggestions of many friends and colleagues. I am especially grateful to Benjamin Anderson, Diliana Angelova, Francesca Dell'Aqua, Beate Fricke, Anneka Lenssen, Ruth Macrides, Yael Rice, Paul Stephenson and the anonymous reviewer. When I began this project, I held a pre-doctoral Institutional Fellowship from the Kress Foundation at the Kunsthistorisches Institute in Florence. At the time of submission, I held a David E. Finley fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery, in Washington, DC. At publication, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at the University of Southern California.

On the Serpent Column, see Stephenson, P., The Serpent Column: A Cultural Biography (Oxford 2016)Google Scholar; ibid., ‘The Serpent Column fountain’, in Shilling, B. and Stephenson, P. (eds.), Fountains and Water Culture in Byzantium (Cambridge 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Strootman, R., ‘The Serpent Column: The persistent meanings of a pagan relic in Christian and Islamic Constantinople’, Material Religion 10, n. 4 (2014) 432–51Google Scholar; Boyvadaoğlu, F. Dell'Acqua, ‘Constantinople 1453: The Patriarch Gennadios, Mehmet the II and the Serpent Column in the hippodrome’, in de Giorgi, M., Hoffmann, A. and Suthor, N. (eds.), Synergies in Visual Culture - Bildkulturen im Dialog (Munich 2013) 325–38Google Scholar; Stichel, R. H. W., ‘Die “Schlangensäule” im Hippodrom von Istanbul. Zum spät- und nachantiken Schicksal des Delphischen Votivs der Schlacht von Plataiai’, Istanbuler Mitteilungen 47 (1997) 315–48Google Scholar; Madden, T. F., ‘The Serpent Column of Delphi in Constantinople: Placement, purposes, and mutilations’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 16 (1992) 111–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Dawkins, R. M., ‘Ancient statues in medieval Constantinople’, Folklore 35, n. 3 (1924) 209–48Google Scholar.

2 Stephenson, Serpent Column, 29–96.

3 Scholars have debated when the Serpent Column was moved to the hippodrome. Stichel and Stephenson note that while early sources are ambiguous, the column was in all likelihood moved to Constantinople by the emperor Constantine. See Stichel, ‘Schlangensäule’, 316–319; Stephenson, Serpent Column, 111–5. Albrecht Berger suggests it may have been moved to its present location only after 1261, see Berger, A., ‘The hippodrome of Constantinople in popular belief and folklore’, in Pitarakis, B. (ed.), Hippodrom / Atmeydanı. İstanbul'un Tarih Sahnesi – A Stage for Istanbul's history (Istanbul 2010) 194–205, here 203Google Scholar.

4 See Majeska, G., Russian Travelers in Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (Washington, D.C. 1984)Google Scholar: for the Anonymous Description, dated to 1389–91, see 142–5; for Ignatius of Smolensk, dated to 1389–92, see 92–3; for Alexander the Clerk, dated 1391–97, see 164–5; for Zosima the Deacon, dated 1419–22, see 184–5; see also Majeska's commentary, 254–6; for the account by Ruy González de Clavijo, dated 1403, see Estrada, F. López (ed.), Embajada a Tamorlán (Madrid 1999) 127Google Scholar; for an English translation, see Strange, Guy le (trans.), Embassy to Tamerlane, 1403–1406 (London 1928) 70–1Google Scholar; see also, Vasiliev, A. A., ‘Pero Tafur, a Spanish traveller of the fifteenth century and his visit to Constantinople, Trebizond, Italy’, Byzantion 7 (1932) 108–9Google Scholar; for the account by Cristoforo Buondelmonti, dated 1420, see Gerola, G., ‘Le vedute di Costantinopoli di Cristoforo Buondelmonti’, Studi Bizantini e Neoelenici 3 (1931) 274–5Google Scholar; for the account of Pero Tafur, dated 1437, see Tafur, P., Andanças é viajes de Pero Tafur por diversas partes del mundo avidos (Madrid 1874)Google Scholar; for an English translation, see Letts, M. (ed. and trans.), Travels and Adventures, 1435–1439 (New York 1926) 143Google Scholar.

Hārūn Ibn Yaḥyā, in Constantinople 911–3, mentions a talisman against snakes consisting of four brass serpents biting their own tails. Scholars generally agree that this passage probably does not describe the Serpent Column, see Dawkins, ‘Ancient statues’, 234, n. 51, Madden, ‘Serpent Column’, 113, and Stephenson, Serpent Column, 123.

5 See Stephenson, Serpent Column, 183–184, and 205–239. Strootman, ‘Serpent Column’, 432–51, Dell'Acqua, ‘Constantinople 1453’, 325–38 and Madden, ‘Serpent Column’, 123–42.

6 On occult science and its difference from magic, see Magdalino, P. and Mavroudi, M., ‘Introduction’, in Magdalino, P. and Mavroudi, M. (eds.), The Occult Sciences in Byzantium (Geneva 2006) 11–15Google Scholar.

7 E.g., Mango, C., ‘Antique statuary and the Byzantine beholder’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 17 (1963) 53, 55–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Dawkins, ‘Ancient Statues’, 244–5. More recent scholars have taken this approach more tactfully, e.g., Madden, ‘Serpent Column’, esp. 111, 120–3; and Berger, ‘Hippodrome’, esp. 205; idem, ‘Magical Constantinople: Statues, legends, and the end of time’, Scandinavian Journal of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 2 (2016) 9–29Google Scholar.

8 Cf. Stephenson, Serpent Column, 185. While Finbarr Barry Flood's study of apotropaia maintains differences between apotropaia and talismans, it does not attend to those differences, as ‘boundaries between these categories are rather fluid,’ see Flood, F. B., ‘Image against nature: Spolia as apotropaia in Byzantium and the dār al-Islām’, The Medieval History Journal 9, n. 1 (2006) 143–66, here, n.32, 151Google Scholar.

9 Christopher Faraone makes this distinction for ancient Greece, see Faraone, C., Talismans and Trojan Horses: Guardian Statues in Ancient Greek Myth and Ritual (New York 1992) 3–12Google Scholar. Faraone notes that while the adjective apotropaios appears in ancient Greek texts, it typically describes deities and sacrifices, and not stationary objects.

10 Some suggest that to be effective apotropaia must be seen, whereas talismans do not, e.g., Flood, ‘Image’, 151; Faraone, Talismans, 4. However, a cross or phylactery worn close to the body effectively retains its apotropaic, non-talismanic function, even if it remains completely hidden.

11 Majeska, Russian Travelers, 255. See also Stephenson, Serpent Column, 149–50.

12 Berger, ‘Magical Constantinople’, 14; Mango, ‘Antique statuary’, 75; Majeska, Russian Travelers, 295–6.

13 Abū ’l-Ḥasan ‘Alī b. Abī Bakr al-Harawī, Kitāb al-Ishārāt ilā ma‘rifat al-ziyārāt, Sourdel-Thomine, J. (trans.), Guide des lieux de pèlerinage (Damascus 1957) 56Google Scholar.

14 Stephenson, Serpent Column, 183–204; Strootman, ‘Serpent Column’, 439–46; Dell'Acqua, ‘Constantinople 1453’, 325–38; and Fricke, B., Ecce Fides: die Statue von Conques, Götzendienst und Bildkultur im Westen (Munich 2007) 136–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 For examples of overlap between talismanic objects, magical practices, and religion, see Maguire, E. Dauterman, Maguire, H., and Duncan-Flowers, M. J., Holy Powers in the Early Christian House (Urbana 1989)Google Scholar; also Peers, G., Orthodox Magic in Trebizond and Beyond: A Fourteenth-Century Greco-Arabic Amulet Roll (Geneva 2018)Google Scholar.

16 Blum, C., ‘The meaning of stoicheion and its derivatives in the Byzantine age’, Eranos 44 (1946) 315–25Google Scholar.

17 P. Magdalino, ‘Occult science and imperial power in Byzantine history and historiography (9th-12th centuries)’, in Magdalino and Mavroudi (eds.), Occult Sciences, 119–62.

18 Blum, ‘The meaning of stoicheion’.

19 Greenfield, R., Traditions of Belief in Late Byzantine Demonology (Amsterdam 1988) 194Google Scholar.

20 Liddell, H. G., Scott, R., and Jones, H. Stuart, Greek-English Lexicon (New York 1996) 1647Google Scholar.

21 E.g., Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, bk 1, ch. 2, par. 1–3.

22 See, for example, Weill-Parot, N., ‘Images corporéiformes et similitudo dans le Picatrix et dans le monde latin médiéval’, in Boudet, J.-P., Caiozzo, A., Weill-Parot, N. (eds.), Images et magie: Picatrix entre Orient et Occident (Paris 2011) 117–36Google Scholar; Ibn Waḥshiyya, Al-filāḥah al-nabaṭīyah (Nabatean Agriculture), 1283, trans. and cit. in Hämeen-Anttila, J., The Last Pagans of Iraq: Ibn Waḥshiyya and his Nabatean Agriculture (Leiden 2006) 191Google Scholar; see also the Ghāyat al-ḥakīm in H. Ritter and Plessner, M. (trans.), ‘Picatrix’ Das Ziel des Weisen von Pseudo-Maǧrīṭī (London 1962)Google Scholar.

23 On sympathy, see below. Antipathy appears throughout the Geoponica, ed. H. Beckh (Leipzig 1895), translation in Dalby, A. (trans. and ed.), Geoponika (Totnes, Devon 2011)Google Scholar.

24 Cit. and trans. in Greenfield, Traditions of Belief, 177.

25 Weinryb, I., The Bronze Object in the Middle Ages (Cambridge 2016) 121–131Google Scholar.

26 Michael Psellos, Epistula 188, ed. K. Sathas, Μɛσαιωνικὴ Βιβλιοθήκη, V (Venice 1872–94) 477–80. Magdalino and Mavroudi, ‘Introduction’, 19. See also K. Ierodiakonou, ‘The Greek concept of sympatheia and its Byzantine appropriation in Michael Psellos’, in Magdalino and Mavroudi (eds.), Occult Sciences, 97–117.

27 Frazer, J. G., The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, 3rd ed., part 1, vol. 1, The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings (1906, repr., London 1926) 54Google Scholar. See also Weinryb, Bronze Object, 121–124. On associating Frazer's idea of sympathy with Byzantine thought, see Ierodiakonou, ‘Greek concept’, esp. 97–98.

28 Stoics refer principally to pneuma (πνɛῦμα), a mixture of fire and air. Ierodiakonou, ‘Greek concept’, 99–106.

29 As is the case in Psellos' thinking, see Ierodiakonou, ‘Greek concept’, 107–111. The co-existence of different models for explaining talismanic efficacy in Byzantium is similar to that elsewhere in the medieval Mediterranean world. On the layering of models of talismanic efficacy in the Islamic world, see Berlekamp, P., ‘Symmetry, sympathy, and sensation: Talismanic efficacy and slippery iconographies in early thirteenth-century Iraq, Syria, and Anatolia’, Representations 133 (2016) 59–109CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Despite differences between ‘high’ and ‘low’ society, many of the same ideas circulated widely and in ways that do not readily conform to our present understandings of ‘high’ and ‘low’. On this issue, see M. Mavroudi, ‘Occult science and society in Byzantium: Considerations for future research’, in Magdalino and Mavroudi (eds.), Occult Sciences, 39–95, esp. 83–5.

31 Stephenson has found references to the Serpent Column in a ninth-century scholion for Thucydides (Stephenson, Serpent Column, 112), and in the thirteenth-century Synaxarion of Constantinople, ibid, 149.

32 On the monuments in the hippodrome, see J. Bardill, ‘The monuments and decoration of the hippodrome in Constantinople’, in Hippodrom/ Atmeydanı, 149–83; Bassett, S., The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople (Cambridge 2004) 24–25Google Scholar, 58–67, 212–32; eadem, ‘Antiquities in the hippodrome of Constantinople’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 45 (1991) 87–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Müller-Wiener, W., Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls (Tübingen 1977) 64–71Google Scholar.

33 See Stephenson, Serpent Column, 97–126. See also, Strootman, ‘Serpent Column’, 432–51. Madden emphasizes the monument's Apollonian aspects (Madden, ‘Serpent Column’, 116); Stichel, the anti-Persian aspects (Stichel, ‘Schlangensäule’, 319). As Strootman notes, these aspects are not mutually exclusive, see Strootman, ‘Serpent Column’, 436.

34 On talismanic snake imagery in the Islamic world, see Berlekemp, ‘Symmetry, sympathy, and sensation’, esp. 72–83, see also Kuehn, S., The Dragon in Medieval East Christian and Islamic Art (Leiden 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 On snakes as guardians, see Ogden, D., Drakōn: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Oxford 2013) e.g., 166–9, 343–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the Serpent Column as an apotropaion, see Stephenson, Serpent Column, 183–204, for snake imagery and fountains, ibid., 150–82. On depictions of dragons on Byzantine fountains, see Bouras, L., ‘Dragon representations on Byzantine phialae and their conduits’, Gesta 16, n. 2 (1977) 65–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On apotropaic imagery, see Flood, ‘Image’, and Faraone, Talismans, 18–39.

36 See Cameron, A. and Herrin, J., Constantinople in the Early Eighth Century: The Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai (Leiden 1984)Google Scholar ch. 60–65 on 136–47, and commentary, 248–60. On prophetic knowledge and the eighth-century socio-political context, see Anderson, B., ‘Classified knowledge: The epistemology of statuary in the Parastaseis Syntomi Chronikai’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 35, n. 1 (2011) 1–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar. More generally, see Berger, ‘Magical Constantinople’.

37 On the Serpent Column as a fountain, see Stephenson, Serpent Column, 150–182, and idem, ‘Serpent Column fountain’, 103–29, especially 104–11. See also Stichel, ‘Schlangensäule’, 322–6; and Madden, ‘Serpent Column’, 117–20.

38 See Mango, C., ‘L'euripe de l'hippodrome de Constantinople. Essai d'identification’, Revue des études byzantines 7 (1949) 180–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Humphrey, J., Roman Circuses: Arenas for Chariot Racing (Berkeley 1986) 175Google Scholar.

39 On the Skylla group, see Stephenson, P., ‘The Skylla group in Constantinople's hippodrome’, Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta 50, n. 1 (2013) 65–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the wider diffusion and reception of Skylla in the Middle Ages, see Dell'Acqua, F., ‘Carlomagno, la conversione dei Sassoni e il Westwerk di Corvey’, in Fiorillo, R. and Lambert, C. (eds.), Medioevo letto, scavato, rivalutato. Studi in onore di Paolo Peduto (Florence 2012) 157–72Google Scholar, esp. 157–62.

40 On Poseidon's connection to racecourses, see Humphrey, Roman Circuses, 11, 259, 262.

41 On Poseidon Hippios, see J. N. Bremmer and B. Bäbler, ‘Poseidon’, in H. Cancik and H. Schneider (eds.) Brill's New Pauly, consulted online on 06 April 2017 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e1006030>

42 On serpents and sea-monsters, see Ogden, Drakōn, 116–47, on serpents as guardians of water sources, see ibid., 165–74.

43 On the possible persistence of the monument's original meanings, see Strootman, ‘Serpent Column’, 432–51. On Constantine's interest in Apollo and Sol Invictus, see Stephenson, P., Constantine: Unconquered Emperor, Christian Victor (London 2009) e.g., 127–40Google Scholar. On the connection between hippodromes and solar cults, see Humphrey, Roman Circuses, 269.

44 The statue may have referred to the antipathy between eagles and serpents, as in Nicander, Theriaca, ll. 438–45; see Gow, A. S. F. and Scholfield, A. F. (eds. and trans.), Nicander: The Poems and Poetical Fragments (Cambridge 1953) 56–9Google Scholar. On the statue, Stephenson, Serpent Column, 189; Madden, ‘Serpent Column’, 120; Cutler, A., ‘The De Signis of Nicetas Choniates: A reappraisal’, American Journal of Archaeology 72, n. 2 (1968) 113–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mango, ‘Antique statuary’, 68; and Dawkins, ‘Ancient statues’, 233–4.

45 Both Dawkins, ‘Ancient statues’, 233–4, and Madden, ‘Serpent Column’, 120, note this connection.

46 van Dieten, J., ed., Nicetae Choniatae historia (Berlin 1975) 651CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See Magoulias, H. J. (trans.), O City of Byzantium: Annals of Niketas Choniatēs (Detroit 1984) 359–60Google Scholar.

47 Scholars tend to see Choniates as distancing himself from the ‘irrational’ beliefs of his contemporaries, contra C. Mango, ‘Antique statuary’, 68. Anthony Cutler notes that Nicetas distinguishes between his own aesthetic appreciation and others’ irrational beliefs, Cutler, ‘De Signis’, 117. See also Papamastorakis, T., ‘Interpreting the De signis of Niketas Choniates’, in Niketas Choniates: A Historian and a Writer (Geneva 2009) 209–224Google Scholar, here, 223.

48 Manuel Philes, Εἰς τὴν ἐν τῷ ἀσωμάτῳ τῆς Λαύρας φιάλην, Carmina, ch. 3, n. 38; see ed. Miller, E., Manuelis Philae carmina, vol. 2 (Paris 1857) 78Google Scholar: Φρɛνῶν ὄφις ἄντικρυς, ἢ τέχνης λέων | Ὁ φύσιν ɛὑρὼν ζῶσαν ἐκ λίθου τάχα·| Εἰ μὴ γὰρ ὑπῆν τῆς γλυφῆς ἡ γλισχρότης, | Ἕρποντας ἄν τις ɛἶδɛ τοὺς ὄφɛις τέως. | Δοκοῦσιν οὖν ζῆν καὶ κινɛῖσθαι μὲν θέλɛιν, | Ὅμως πτοɛῖσθαι καὶ νɛκρὰν πῆξιν φέρɛιν,| Μήπως ὀλισθήσωσιν ὑπὸ τοῦ τρέχɛιν. | Οἱ γὰρ θρασɛῖς λέοντɛς ἑστῶτɛς κάτω | Κɛχήνασι νῦν ɛἰς βορὰν ἠπɛιγμένοι. See also Stephenson, Serpent Column, 152–3; Pitarakis, B., ‘Light, waters, and wondrous creatures: Supernatural forces for healing’, in Life is Short, Art Long. The Art of Healing in Byzantium (Istanbul 2015) 43–63Google Scholar, here, 63, as well as Braounou-Pietsch, E., Beseelte Bilder: Epigramme des Manuel Philes auf bildliche Darstellungen (Vienna 2010) 108108–9Google Scholar, n. 49.

49 On enlivened works of art, see Braounou-Pietsch, Beseelte Bilder, 108–9, n. 49.

50 John Tzetzes, Chiliades, Chilias 2, historia 60, ll. 925–49, ed. Leone, P. L. M., Ioannis Tzetzae historiae (Naples 1968)Google Scholar; Hesychius, Origines Constantinopolitanae (Patria Kōnstantinoupoleōs), sec. 23–5, see Berger, A. (trans.), Accounts of Medieval Constantinople: The Patria (Cambridge, Mass. 2013) 12–15Google Scholar. See also the translation and commentary by Anthony Kaldellis in Brill's New Jacoby, available at http://brill.nl/bnjo/, and Kaldellis, A., ‘The works and days of Hesychios the Illustrious of Miletos’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 45 (2005): 381–403Google Scholar.

51 On the idea of animals avoiding their own images, see Flood, ‘Image’, 153–4.

52 The fire of August 1203 burned down much in the vicinity of the hippodrome, but not the hippodrome itself. Crusaders stole or melted down much of the bronze statuary once there, as Niketas Choniates describes in his De signis (see above). Locals may have further dilapidated the hippodrome, see Madden, T. F., ‘The fires of the Fourth Crusade in Constantinople. 1203–1204: A damage assessment’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 84/85, 1 (1991) 72–93Google Scholar, esp. 82. On the state of the city during and after the Latin occupation, see Talbot, A.-M., ‘The restoration of Constantinople under Michael VIII’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 47 (1993) 243–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar. More recently, see Jevtić, I., ‘Constantinople after 1261: Contextualizing the restoration of the city under Michael VIII Palaiologos’, in Proceedings of the 35th Symposium of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Art and Archaeology of Christian Archaeological Society in Athens (Athens 2015) 37–8Google Scholar. By the fifteenth century, much of the hippodrome appears to have been in ruins, see Guilland, R., ‘Etudes sur l'hippodrome de Constantinople: La déchéance et la mine de l'hippodrome’, Byzantinoslavica 30 (1969) 209–19Google Scholar, and C. Mango, ‘A history of the hippodrome of Constantinople’, in Hippodrom /Atmeydanı, 36–43, esp. 41–3.

53 Although Madden suggests that the fountain may have still been running at the time of the Fourth Crusade, he doubts that it would have continued in operation, adding that it had ‘certainly run dry long before the fifteenth century’, see Madden, ‘Serpent Column’, 120–2, here, 122. Many of the main long-distance water lines were non-functional. Some, such as the Valens line (or sections of it), apparently continued to flow with water, ‘even if the supply was more limited and was primarily for agricultural use’, see Crow, J., Bardill, J., and Bayliss, R., The Water Supply of Byzantine Constantinople (London 2008) 22Google Scholar.

54 See above, Majeska, Russian Travelers, 92–3, 142–5, 164–5, 184–5, 254–6; López Estrada, Embajada a Tamorlán, 127, Le Strange (trans.), Embassy to Tamerlane, 70–1; Vasiliev, ‘Pero Tafur’; Gerola, ‘Le vedute’, 274–5; Tafur, Andanças é viajes de Pero Tafur, Letts (ed. and trans.), Travels and Adventures, 143.

55 On Crusader views of the statuary in the hippodrome, including their own conception of the statues’ talismanic properties, see Macrides, R., ‘Constantinople: The crusader's gaze’, in Macrides, R. (ed.), Travel in the Byzantine World (Burlington, Vt. 2002), 194–212Google Scholar, esp. 206–7.

56 Majeska, Russian Travelers, 184.

57 Tafur, Andanças é viajes, 177.

58 Majeska, Russian Travelers, 255. See also Stephenson, Serpent Column, 149–50.

59 Mango, C., ‘The legend of Leo the Wise’, Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta 6 (1960) 59–93Google Scholar.

60 Mango, ‘Leo the Wise’, 90–3.

61 Mango, ‘Leo the Wise’, 71.

62 Clavijo, Embajada a Tamorlán, 127.

63 Fricke, Ecce Fides, 136–41; Dell'Acqua, ‘Constantinople 1453’, Strootman, ‘Serpent Column’, 444, and Stephenson, Serpent Column, 194–8, on the brazen serpent, see Weinryb, Bronze Object, 109–24; Francisco López Estrada, the editor of Clavijo's text, also notes the connection to Numbers 21:4; see Clavijo, Embajada a Tamorlán, 127.

64 For examples where the brazen serpent is not suspended horizontally, see Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, gr. 74, f. 171r, and New York, Morgan Library, MS M 692, f. 222r.

65 Zosima the Deacon notes that it heals when touched. Majeska, Russian Travelers, 184–5.

66 See also Stephenson, Serpent Column, 183–204.

67 See Kessler, H., ‘Christ the magic dragon’, Gesta 48 (2009) 119–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stephenson, Serpent Column, 189; and Weinryb, Bronze Object, 121–4. Ancient and medieval medical authorities were careful to qualify, e.g., Leigh, R. (trans. and ed.), On Theriac to Piso, Attributed to Galen (Leiden 2016) 106–19CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

68 On the general idea that like curing like is a corollary of sympathy, see Mauss, M. and Hubert, H., A General Theory of Magic, Brain, R. (trans.) (New York 1972; repr. 2001) 86–7Google Scholar. For a discussion of reversal that does not involve sympathy, see Berlekemp, ‘Symmetry, sympathy and sensation’, esp. 69, 72–83.

69 E.g., Aristotle, De anima, 423b, 424a-b.

70 Madden makes a similar point, see Madden, ‘Serpent Column’, 114.

71 See Geoponica, bk. 15, ch. 1, sec. 21, ed. Beckh (Leipzig 1895) 434. See Dalby (trans.), Geoponika, 298.

72 On the inscriptions, see Stephenson, Serpent Column, 8–15.

73 See above, also, Blum, ‘The meaning of stoicheion’.

74 On talismanic spoliated inscriptions from northern Syria, see Gonnella, J., ‘Columns and hieroglyphs: Magic spolia in medieval Islamic architecture of Northern Syria’, Muqarnas 27 (2010) 103–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 106–7. On inscriptions with special powers in Byzantium, see James, L., ‘“Pray not to fall into temptation and be on your guard”: Antique statues in Christian Constantinople’, Gesta 35, n. 1(1996) 12–20Google Scholar.

75 On ancient Greek associations between metalworking and the daimones, see Blakely, S., Myth, Ritual, and Metallurgy in Ancient Greece and Recent Africa (Cambridge 2006) 9–54Google Scholar. In the Middle Ages, metalworking could also be associated with alchemy. On alchemy in Byzantium, see M. K. Papathanassiou, ‘Stephanus of Alexandria: A famous Byzantine scholar, alchemist and astrologer’, in Magdalino and Mavroudi, (eds.), Occult Sciences, 165–170, and M. Mertens, ‘Graeco-Egyptian alchemy in Byzantium’, in Magdalino and Mavroudi, (eds.), Occult Sciences, 205–230.

76 Rehatsek, E., ‘Explanations and facsimiles of eight Arabic talismanic medicine-cups’, Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 10 (1873–4) 150–62Google Scholar, here, 153. This cup was sold at Christie's (Art of the Islamic and Indian World, London, King Street, 4 October 2012, Sale 5708, Lot 99). A similar cup is in The David Collection in Copenhagen (inv. 36/1995). On Islamicate magical bowls, see Savage-Smith, E., ‘Magic-medicinal bowls’, in Maddison, F. and Savage-Smith, E. (eds.), Science, Tools and Magic (London 1997)Google Scholar.

77 See Maguire, E. Dauterman and Maguire, H., Other Icons: Art and Power in Byzantine Secular Culture (Princeton 2007) 78Google Scholar.

78 F. Graf, ‘Knoten’, in H. Cancik, H. Schneider, M. Landfester (eds.), Der Neue Pauly, Consulted online 09 December 2016 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_dnp_e617560> See also Day, C. L., ‘Knots and knot lore’, Western Folklore 9, n. 3 (1950) 229–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with relevant examples scattered throughout.

79 Stephenson, Serpent Column, 191–4; on knotted columns, see Kalavrezou, I., ‘The Byzantine knotted column’, in Vryonis, S. (ed.), Byzantina kai Metabyzantina. Byzantine Studies in Honor of Milton V. Anastos (Malibu 1985) 95–103Google Scholar.

80 Clavijo, Embajada a Tamorlán, 127: ‘…e eran tan gruesas como dos muslos de omne cada una, torcidas en uno como soga…’ See also Stephenson, Serpent Column, 149–50.

81 For other pictures of copulating vipers: Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. med. gr. 1, s. VI, ff. 398v and 399v; Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, cod. suppl. gr. 1294, s. X, f. 7r; Venice, Biblioteca Marciana, gr. 479, f. 14v and f. 33v; see also Kádár, Z., Survivals of Greek Zoological Illumination in Byzantine Manuscripts (Budapest 1978) 37–51Google Scholar.

82 Nicander, Theriaca, ll. 128–139, Gow and Scholfield, Nicander, 36–7. See also Leigh, On Theriac, 106–9.

83 Nicander, Theriaca, ll. 98–114, Gow and Scholfield, Nicander, 34–5.

84 In the eleventh century, Psellos mentioned placing substances inside statues, see Faraone, Talismans, 21. The eleventh-century Arabic grimoire the Ghāyat al-ḥakīm also describes inserting substances into statues, see Ritter and Plessner, ‘Picatrix’.

85 Galen, De locis affectis libri vi, ed. C.G. Kühn, VIII (Leipzig 1824; repr. Hildesheim 1965) 422–23. See Scarborough, J., ‘Nicander's toxicology I: Snakes’, Pharmacy in History 19, n. 1 (1977) 3–23Google ScholarPubMed, here 10.

86 See, for example, Ritter and Plessner, ‘Picatrix’, 7–9 and 91–4; the explanation here is similar to that in Ibn Waḥshiyya, Al-filāḥah al-nabaṭīyah (Nabatean Agriculture), 1283, trans. in Hämeen-Anttila, Last Pagans, 191. As noted above, a talismanic object's attractive force could also be explained in terms of magnetism, see Synesios of Cyrene, cit. and trans. in Greenfield, Traditions of Belief, 177.

87 Different alloys of bronze existed in the ancient world. Pliny notes that the ancient Greeks favoured alloys invented on Delos and Aegina and the bronze of Corinth, see Pliny, Historia naturalis 34.8–10. Lead was added to Roman bronzes to lower the melting point. See the discussion in Andreopoulou-Mangou, H., ‘Appendix: Chemical analysis and metallographic examination’, in Hemingway, S., The Horse and Jockey from Artemision: A Bronze Equestrian Monument of the Hellenistic Period (Berkeley 2004) 149–53Google Scholar. On the casting and bronze of the Serpent Column in ancient Greece, see Stephenson, Serpent Column, 67–79, and, more generally, Hemingway, Horse and Jockey, 3–16. On medieval ideas about casting, see Weinryb, Bronze Object, 27–30, 33–7. On metal-casting in Byzantium, see Papathanassiou, M. K., ‘Metallurgy and metalworking techniques’, in Laiou, A. E. (ed.), The Economic History of Byzantium, Seventh Through the Fifteenth Centuries (Washington DC 2002) 121–7Google Scholar.

88 Liddell, Scott, Jones, Greek-English Lexicon, 832.

89 Scarborough, ‘Nicander's toxicology’, n. 114, 22.