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Ctesias' Parrot1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. M. Bigwood
J. M. Bigwood
Affiliation:
Victoria College, University of Toronto
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Abstract

Tall tales abound in Ctesias' Indica, as scholars have not hesitated to emphasize, heaping ridicule on the author's enthusiasm for the fantastic and on his apparent lack of regard for the truth. However, by no means everything in the work is absurd or wrong, and marvels too are no surprise. After all, as a resident of the Persian court for a number of years at the end of the fifth century B.C., Ctesias had seen items from India which would have been truly remarkable to Greeks of his time. He had seen, for example, elephants, which few Greeks before Alexander's Asian campaigns had done, and, it should be added, much of what he says about these animals is quite correct. The following pages discuss what he relates of the bird which he calls the β⋯ττακκος, the parrot, or rather what Photius in a not entirely problem-free section of his summary of the work preserves of the original description. As with Ctesias' account of the elephant, this is the first Greek description, so far as we know.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , May 1993 , pp. 321 - 327
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1993

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References

2 For twentieth-century assessments of the work, see Bigwood, J. M., ‘Ctesias' Indica and Photius’, Phoenix 43 (1989), 302–316, p. 302CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Karttunen, K., India in Early Greek Literature (Helsinki, 1989)Google Scholar, who gives a balanced view, should now be added.

3 See Bigwood, J. M., ‘Aristotle and the Elephant Again’, AJP 1993Google Scholar(forthcoming).

4 FGrHist 688 F 45.8. For the form of the name see Bigwood (n. 3). On Photius' summary, our sole source for this part of the account, see Bigwood (n. 2), 302–16.

5 Cf. Pemberton, R. D. and Rotroff, S. I., Birds of the Athenian Agora (Princeton, 1985), p. 14Google Scholar. Louis, P., ‘La Domestication des animaux à l'époqued' Aristote’, RHS 23 (1970), 189–201, p. 194CrossRefGoogle Scholar, suggests differently.

6 For examples see Jereb, , ‘Papagei’, RE 18 (1949), 932–4Google Scholarand Toynbee, J. M. C., Animals in Roman Life and Art (Ithaca, 1973), pp. 247–9Google Scholar. For pre-Hellenistic representations on ‘Graeco-Persian’ or ‘eastern’ gems see below, n. 33.

7 PCG 5 F 120 (CAF2 F 123).

8 Kock CAF 2 F 123 treats it as serious.

9 According to Hunter, R. L., Eubulus: The Fragments (Cambridge, 1983), p. 10Google Scholar, his plays belong to the period c. 380–c. 335.

10 On this reference and Aristotle's use of Ctesias, see Bigwood (n. 3).

11 Callixeinus in Athenaeus 201b and 387d.

12 Wotke, F., ‘Papagei’, RE 18 (1949), 927Google Scholar.

13 Cf. his account of the martichoras (F 45.15 and F 45d), and of the wild ass (F 45.45 and F 45q).

14 Photius and the other excerptors focus on what they find marvellous: see Bigwood (n. 2), 302–16.

15 In the apparatus criticus, Jacoby notes the suggestions of Baehr and Bekker.

16 McCrindle, J. W., Ancient India as Described by Ktesias the Knidian (Calcutta, 1882), p. 8Google Scholar; Freese, J. H., The Library of Photius i (London, 1920), p. 111Google Scholar.

17 That the word occurred in the original is suggested by the fact that Photius (F 45.15), Aristotle (F 45d = H.A. 2.1 501a24) and Aelian (F 45d = N.A. 4.21) all use it here. On the use (sometimes extensive) of Ctesias' vocabulary by Photius and Aelian, see Bigwood (n. 2), pp. 306–8.

18 Cf. Powell, J. E., A Lexicon to Herodotus (Cambridge, 1938)Google Scholar, s.v. πρ⋯σωπον.

19 Alexander of Myndus in the 1st century A.D. distinguishes between ῥ⋯γχος and πρ⋯σωπον (according to Athenaeus 39If).

20 Photius, Bibliothèque i (Paris, 1959), p. 134Google Scholar.

21 Baehr, J., Ctesiae Cnidii Operum Reliquiae (Frankfurt, 1824), p. 270Google Scholar. The preposition ὡς in reference to a thing rather than to a person is not good Attic prose: Kühner-Gerth, GG3 II 1 (Leipzig, 1898), pp. 471–2Google Scholar. But for examples in the MSS of Hippocrates, some of which are accepted by editors, see Kühn, J. H. and Fleischer, U., Index Hippocraticus 4 (Göttingen, 1989), p. 883Google Scholar, s.v. ὡς A2.

22 F 45.45 (Phot.) with F 45q = Ael. N.A. 4.52, and F 45h = Ael. N.A. 4.27 with F 45.26 (Phot.), although Photius has greatly abbreviated here.

23 For the meanings ‘dark’ and ‘blue’, see Irwin, M. E., Colour Terms in Greek Poetry (Toronto, 1974), pp. 79ffGoogle Scholar. But ‘blue-green’ also seems possible. At any rate kyanos is used of materials such as Egyptian blue frit (cf. Thphr. Lap. 55), which can be blue-green as well as blue; for the colour, see Halleux, R., ‘Lapis-lazuli, azurite ou pâte de verre? a propos de kuwano et kuwanowoko dans les tablettes mycéniennes’, SMEA 9 (1969), 47–66, p. 52Google Scholar. We may also note that Latin caeruleus, which in many contexts is equivalent to the Greek adjective, sometimes means ‘blue-green’ or even ‘green'; see Andre, J., Etudes sur les lermes de couleur dans la langue latine (Paris, 1949), pp. 162–71Google Scholar.

24 Cf. also Persica F 1 la (Antigonus, Hist. Mir. 145), although not in the parallel excerpts.

25 Photii Bibliotheca (Berlin, 1824)Google Scholar; cf. C. Müller's edition of Ctesias (appendix to Didot edition of Herodotus, Paris, 1844), p. 89.

26 The meaning could, of course, also be ‘below the neck it is blue’.

27 F. Wotk e (n. 12), 928, whose identification is consistent with Bekker's text. For the species, see Ali, Salim and Ripley, S. D., Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan 3 (Bombay, 1969), pp. 172–4Google Scholarand Forshaw, J. M., Parrots of the World 2 (Melbourne, 1978), pp. 351–4Google Scholar. Parrot nomenclature is confusing and inconsistent. I give throughout the Latin designation and, in brackets, the current British name, as given in Howard, R. and Moore, A., A Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World 2 (London, 1991)Google Scholar. I have occasionally also noted other common names for species or subspecies.

28 Cf. Thompson, D'Arcy W., A Glossary of Greek Birds 2 (London, 1936), p. 336Google Scholarand Warmington, E. H., The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India (Cambridge, 1928), p. 153Google Scholar. It is sometimes confusingly called the Blossom-headed Parakeet. Identification with Psittacula roseata (Blossom-headed Parakeet), which closely resembles cyanocephala, can be ruled out, since this bird belongs to territories too far to the east (Assam to Indo-China); see Forshaw (n. 27), p. 346.

29 Cf. also πώγων of the black spot under the gullet of the fish tragos according to Clearchus (in Athenaeus 332c).

30 Given the uncertainties about the text, we cannot, of course, exclude the possibility that κυ⋯νεον refers to some other blue or bluish part, e.g. to the blue-green band on the neck, the blue-green rump or the blue central tail-feathers. The bird is described by Ali and Ripley (n. 27), pp. 178–81 and by Forshaw (n. 27), pp. 344–6. Ball, V., ‘On the Identification of the Animals and Plants of India Which were Known to Early Greek Authors’, The Indian Antiquary 14 (1885), 303–11, p. 304Google Scholar, suggested that Ctesias' bird is Psittacula eupatria nipalensis, sometimes called the Large Indian Parakeet, and a subspecies of Ps. eupatria (Alexandrine Parakeet). This is another mainly green bird, but larger, with a pink collar and red patch on the wing (see Ali and Ripley, pp. 164–6 and Forshaw, pp. 335–6). However, Ball's comments are based on the unacceptable translation of McCrindle (above, p. 323).

31 e.g. Pliny, , N.H. 10.117Google Scholar; Apul, . Flor. 12Google Scholar; Solin. 52.43–5. Others (e.g. Ovid, , Amor. 2.6Google Scholarand Statius, , Silv. 2.4)Google Scholarmake no mention of the red collar, which is in fact lacking in the females of the two species mentioned in the text. The Roman sources are discussed by Capponi, F., Ornithologia Latina (Genoa, 1979), pp. 458–61Google Scholar.

32 Cf. Arnott, W. G., ‘Notes on GAVIA and MERGVS in Latin Authors’, CQ 14 (1964), 249–62, p. 261 n. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholarand CR 36 (1986), 178Google Scholar. Manillensis has a green face, the sides of the head being bluish; see Ali and Ripley (n. 27), pp. 169–72 and Forshaw (n. 27), pp. 338–44. For Ps. krameri, see also Wilson, M. G. and Roselaar, C. S. in Cramp, S. et al. (eds.), The Birds of the Western Palaearctic 4 (Oxford, 1985), pp. 378–89Google Scholar. (This species is native to parts of North Africa as well as India, and now breeds in Europe and indeed in England as far north as Lancashire, as Professor Arnott has drawn to my attention.) For Ps. eup. nipalensis, which resembles manillensis, but which has a red shoulder-patch, see above n. 30.

33 Fragments of Achaemenid stoneware found in the Treasury at Persepolis include the handle of a tray (or plate) embellished by a parrot head and four additional handle fragments representing parrots: see Schmidt, E., Persepolis, ii (Chicago, 1957), p. 88Google Scholarwith plates 53.4 and 54.4. Inscribed stoneware fragments found in this location bear the name of no king later than Xerxes. For a ‘Graeco-Persian’ gem depicting a parrot, see Richter, G. M. A., Catalogue of Engraved Gems, Greek, Etruscan and Roman, Metropolitan Museum (New York, 1956), no. 139Google Scholar(dated to the second half of the fifth century). Two parrots appear on a gem labelled ‘eastern’ and dated to the early fourth century: see Boardman, J. and Vollenweider, M.-L., Catalogue of the Engraved Gems and Finger Rings, Ashmolean Museum, i (Oxford, 1978), no. 118Google Scholar.

34 That exotic birds might have been found in the paradeisoi of the king or of his nobles is suggested by Miller, M. C., ‘Peacocks an d Tryphe in Classical Athens’, Arch. News xv, 1–4 (1989), 1–10, p. 1Google Scholar. Diener, H., ‘Die “Camer a Papagalli” im Palast des Päpstes: Papageien als Hausgenossen der Pāpste, Könige un d Fürsten des Mittelalters und der Renaissance’, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 49 (1967), 43–97Google Scholar(I owe the reference to M. Miller), discusses the keeping of parrots by leading men from antiquity to the renaissance. For exotic birds as gifts, cf. the peacocks of the Athenian Pyrilampes (Antiphon F 57 [Blass] = Athenaeus 397c–d), which were perhaps a gift of the Great King: see Miller, , loc. cit., p. 2Google Scholar, and Cartledge, P., ‘Fow l Play: A Curious Lawsuit in Classical Athens,’ in Cartledge, P., Millett, P. and Todd, S. (eds.), Nomos: Essays in Athenian Law, Politics and Society (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 41–61Google Scholar. Much later a ‘partridge larger than a vulture’ was one of the presents sent by an Indian king to Augustus, according t o Nicolaus of Damascus (90 F 100 = Strabo 15.1.73). Cf. also Ael. N.A. 15.14, on birds brought as gifts to the Indian king, and Ps.-Callisth. 3.18.7 – the parrots sent by Queen Candace to Alexander.

35 D'Arcy Thompson (n. 28), p. 114.

36 The fact that Aristotle H.A. 8.12 597b27 includes the parrot among the birds of prey may be due to the influence of Ctesias.

37 For some much more recent exaggerations of the talking abilities of Psittacula columboides (Malabar Parakeet), see Ali and Ripley (n. 27), pp. 186–7.

38 For the speech of the first two, see Ali and Ripley (n. 27), pp. 165–6 and 172 and Duke of Bedford, , Parrots and Parrot-like Birds in Aviculture (London, 1954), pp. 174 and 169–170Google Scholar. André, J. and Filliozat, J., L'Inde vue de Rome (Paris, 1986), p. 379 n. 275Google Scholar, wrongly deny this. For the speech of the third, see Duke of Bedford, p. 181.

39 See the passages listed above (n. 31). Other references are supplied by D'Arcy Thompson (n. 28), pp. 236ff.