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The Bee in Greek Mythology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Arthur Bernard Cook
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Extract

The illustration which heads this paper shows a gold ornament in the form of a bee purchased in 1875 by the British Museum. It is a neat specimen of early granulated work; but, beyond the fact that it came from Crete, nothing is known as to the circumstances of its discovery. Similar finds have, however, been made elsewhere. Furtwängler in the Arch. Zeit. vol, 41, col. 274, notices among the acquisitions of the Berlin Museum for the year 1882 ‘sundry small plates of gold from the Crimea representing a head of Dionysus, Bees, and a Gorgoneiou.’ Our own national collection possesses fourteen bodies of bees in gold of late Etruscan workmanship, and also a bee stamped in gold leaf of the same date. With these may be compared the three hundred golden bees found along with an ox-head of gold in the tomb of Childeric, king of the Franks. Doubtless other examples could be cited; and it seems worth while to attempt some investigation of their significance.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 15 , November 1895 , pp. 1 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1895

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References

1 Perrot-Chipiez, , Hist. de ľ Art iii. 829Google Scholar, Fig. 592, erroneously say Camiros.

2 So described by Mr. H. B. Walters, who adds: ‘Curiously enough the head is in each case missing.’ It has been suggested to me that they may be intended to represent larvae or chrysalide. In favour of this is the fact that no'sign of fracture is visible where the head would have been joined to the body.

3 Grimm, J., Deutsche Mythol. ii. ed. 1854, p. 659Google Scholar. De Gubernatis, , Zoological Mythology, ii. 217.Google Scholar

4 Flinders Petrie, Tell ä Amarna, Pl. XVII. figs. 336 and 337, shows two small models of bees or perhaps flies, but gives no clue to their meaning.

5 The present essay was substantially complete before Robert-Tornow, W. tractate de apium mellisque apud vetcres significatione et symbolica et mythologica (Berlin, 1893Google Scholar) came into my hands. That lucid and interesting author gives an exhaustive digest of passages, from which I have borrowed sundry illustrations. He has not, however, led me to modify in any essential point the opinions which I had independently formed.

6 As quoted by Columella, , de re rustica ix. 2Google Scholar. On the other hand Eupbronius, ibidem, said that they appeared first on Mount Hymettus in the days of Erechtheus: Euhemerus gave his verdict for Ceos, others again for Thessaly. Euteknios, , metapkr. Nicand. Alex. 450Google Scholar, claims the honour for Nemea.

7 Ant. Lib. xix.

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11 Cases were on record of horses and boys being stung to death by bees: W. Robert-Tornow, op. cit. pp. 60–61.

12 Cp. Pliny, , N.H. xxi. 46Google Scholar: ‘aliud in Creta miraculum mellis. mons est Carina ix M. passuum ambita: intra quod spatium muscae non reperiuntur, natumque ibi mel nusquam attingunt.’

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15 Verg., Georg, iv. 152Google Scholar. Coluta, . de re rust. ix. 2.Google Scholar

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18 Columella, , de re rustica ix. 2.Google Scholar

19 E.g. Elyrus (Head, , Hist. Num. p. 393Google Scholar), Hyrtacina (ibid. p. 397), Praesns ibid. p. 404).

20 Antoninus Liberalis xiii.

21 Coins of Melitaea in Phthiotis (Head, , Hist. Num. p. 256Google Scholar) have a bead of Zens on the obverse side, and on the reverse a bee with ΜΕΛΙ or ΜΕΛΙΤΑΙΕΩΝ. This is not merely, as Prof.Ridgeway, (Origin of Currency and Weight, Standards, p. 323Google Scholar) contends, a type parlant; it alludes in all probability to the local legend given above.

22 Roscher, Lex. col. 154, s.v. Aigolios.

23 E.g. the legend of Ibrahim Ibn Edhem in the Tuti-Name, which tella how a bee carried crumbs of bread away from the king's table to take them to a blind sparrow (De Gubernatis, op. cit. ii. 217).

24 Ap. Athen., Deip. 491Google Scholar B.

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27 The odd collocation of wax and wings occurs again in the story of Icarus. Did the Sun-god destroy. Icarus for presuming to employ substances peculiar to his own cult at Delphi? For the sun represented as a bee vide infra.

28 J.H.S. ix. 3.

29 Plut. §17. If in Paus. loc. cit. denoted the bees' wings, it would have had the article. Philostrat., vit. Apoll. vi. 10Google Scholar (quoted by W. Robert-Tornow, op. cit. p. 171) says

30 The author of a work on Delphi (known to Tzetzes, chil. vi. 90, 936, and the Schol, on Hesiod, p. 29) was named Melisseus—again no more than a coincidence.

31 Herodot. ii. 55, 57. Soph. Trach. 172, with Schol, ad loc. Paus. VII. xxi. 1, X. xii. 5.

32 J.H. S. ix. 14 ff. Sometimes the omphalos is covered by ‘strings of what look like small eggs‘: but these are probably to be interpreted as woollen taeniae.

33 J.H.S. xiv, 7.

34 The details relating to this cavern—the glare emitted and the red stream that ‘boiled over’—perhaps point to volcanic phenomena.

35 In Crete too there was an Ὀμφαλός, about which a story was current connecting it with the birth of Zeus (Diod., Bibl. v. 70)Google Scholar.

36 Ap. Rhod., Arg. iv. 1129–34.Google Scholar

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38 Eur., Bacch. 142, 710Google Scholar. Himerius, , Or. xiii. 7.Google Scholar

39 Diod. Bibl. iii. 68 ff.

40 With this agrees Oppian, Cyneg. iv. 271 ff.

41 Lenormant, Pierres gravées ďOrléans i. Pl. 59; Chabouillet, Catalogue général des camées, &c., de la bibliothèque impériale, No. 1625. See E. Thraemer in Roscher, Lex. col. 1153 s. v. ‘Geflügelter Dionysos.’

42 De Gubernatis, op. cit. ii. 217. I do not know on what authority the statement rests.

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45 Hom., Hymn, in Mercur. 552–563.Google Scholar

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47 Ibid. p. 815, n. C. To the list there given add Hesychius' glosses and

48 See W. Robert-Tornow, op. cit. pp. 35–39: ‘de apium examine vel imperatoriae vel regiae dignitatis, omnino potestatis divitiarumque, omine’; ibid. pp. 43–60: ‘de apium examine diro militibus portento.’ The author here re futes at length the opinion of Creuzer that a swarm of bees was ‘omen faustum militibus,’ admitting, however, that the bees which were seen over Rollo's army in A.D. 800 possibly portended a happy issue to his expedition (why not an unhappy issue to his foes ?). He continues: ‘si autem causam, cur apes symbolum terroris fuerint, quaerimus, ea in aculei vi patere videtur.’ A better cause may be found in the funereal associations of the bee; vide infra. Its prophetic office was not confined to Greece, e.g. Josephus, Archaeol. V. vi.

49 Argum. Pyth. quoted by Prof.Middleton, in the J. H. S. ix. 21.Google Scholar

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51 Pausanias IX. xl. 1.

52 Aristotle, , An. Hist. x. 40Google Scholar, 627b 10. Cp. Aelian, , de nat. an. i. 11Google Scholar, v. 13. Aratus, , prognost. 296Google Scholar. Philes, , de an. prop. 567 f.Google Scholar

53 Cp. Anth. Pal. ii. 342 of Homer; ibid. ix. 187 of Menander.

54 See the author of Lucan's life quoted by W. Robert-Tornow, op. cit. p. 116.

55 Pausanias IX. xxiii. 2. Aelian, , V.H. xii. 45Google Scholar. Philostrat, . Im. ii. 12Google Scholar. Cp. Porphyr, , de abst. iii. 17.Google Scholar

56 Philostrat., jun. Im. xiv. 1Google Scholar. W. Robert-Tornow, op. cit. p. 110, compares a gem described by Winckelmann, which represents a mask with a bee about to fly into its open mouth.

57 Cicero, , de divinatione, I. xxxvi. 78Google Scholar, II. xxxi. 66. Valer. Max. I. vi. 3. Pliny, N. H. XI. xviii. Aelian, , V. H. x. 21Google Scholar, xii. 45. Olympiod, . vit. Plat. p. 583Google Scholar. Cp. Clem. Al. Strom. I. xi.

58 Vit. Verg. 25 ap. Reiffersch. Sueton. pp. 68–72, quoted by W. Robert-Tornow, op. cit. p. 116.

59 Reiffersch. Sueton. pp. 76–79, quoted by W. Robert-Tornow, op. cit. p. 116.

60 The Golden Legend, ed. Th. Graesse, p. 250, quoted by W. Robert-Tornow, op. cit. p. 117.

61 Nonnos, , Dion. xli. 218 ff.Google Scholar

62 Artemidorus, , Oneirocrit. v. 83.Google Scholar

63 Nonnos, , Dion. xli. 250 ff.Google Scholar

64 Anth. Pal. ix. 505, 5–6.

65 Aelian attributes to the bee Philes, , de an. prop. 589Google Scholar, says And Varro, , de re rustica III. xvi. 7 ‘apes…musarum esse dicuntur volucres.’Google Scholar

66 Theocr. Id. vii. 78 ff., Syr. 3.

67 Philostrat., Im. II. viii. 5Google Scholar. Himerius, , Orat. x. 1Google Scholar, xxviii. 7, ed. Dübner.

68 Verg., Georg. iv. 317–558Google Scholar. Ovid, , Fasti i. 363–380Google Scholar, has an epitome of the tale. The various sources are collected by Blondel, K. in Daremberg and Saglio, Dict. Ant. I. i. p. 424Google Scholar, s.v. ‘Aristaeus,’ and still more fully by Schirmer in Roscher, Lex. coll. 547–551.

69 Vergil, , Georg, iv. 295–314Google Scholar. See further the authorities quoted by W. Robert-Tornow, op. cit. pp. 19–29, from Philetas of Cos in the fourth century B.C. to ‘Rabusium quendam,’ who in his book Von dem Veldtbau (Strassb. 1566) has a chapter entitled ‘Von den Bynen und wie sie aus einem todten Rindt wachsen.’ To his list should be added Philes, , de an. prop. 1198.Google Scholar

70 Geopon. xv. 2.

71 Porphyr, , de ant. Nymph. 18Google Scholar. Theocritus, , Syr. 3Google Scholar ταυροπάτωρ = μέλισσα (Jo. Pedias, and Max. Hol. ad loc.). Varro, de re rustica II. v. βουγόνας = ‘apes.’

72 Ovid, , Fasti i. 379 f.Google Scholar

73 The Golden Bough ii. 339.

74 The Golden Bough, i. 179.

75 Ibid. i. 123.

76 Pliny, N. H. XI. xv., says of honey: ‘in aestimatu est e thymo, coloris aurei, saporis gratissimi.’ Cp. XXI. xxxi.: Vergil, , Ecl. v. 77Google Scholar; Georg. iv. 112, 169, 181, 241, 270; Aen. i. 436.

77 The Golden Bough i. 124.

78 Ibid. i. 126–7.

79 Diod., Bibl. iv. 81Google Scholar. Cp. Oppian, , Cyneg. iv. 269 ffGoogle Scholar. Nonnos, , Dion. v. 232 ff.Google Scholar

80 Pindar, , Pyth. ix. 107.Google Scholar

81 Pliny, N.H. XIV. vi.

82 Daremberg, and Saglio, , Dict. Ant. I. i. p. 424Google Scholar: ‘il semble aussi avoir plus ďun rapport avec Zeus Akraios du Pélion.’

83 Head, , Hist. Num. p. 411.Google Scholar

84 Ibid. p. 413.

85 Ch. Morel in Daremberg, and Saglio, , Dict. Ant. I. i. pp. 304–5Google Scholar. Head, Hist. Num. p. 129. Pausanias V. xxiii. 5 mentions the temple of a goddess Ὑβλαία, who is represented in connexion with a bee on the obverse of a coin of Hybla Magna.

86 Hyginus cxxxvi. p. 115, ed. M. Schmidt.

87 Arch. Zeit. vol. 27, p. 111.

88 Salzmann, Nécropole de Camiros, Pl. I.

89 Cp. Roscher, Lex. col. 564; Micali, , Mon. Ined. Pl. I. 3, 23Google Scholar; Baumeister, Denkm. fig. 139; Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1893, col. 213 ff. Pll. 8–10.

90 At the same time the Rhodian superstition mentioned supra perhaps indicates that on this island honey was considered especially attractive to the soul of the infant. For the time when the babe is first placed in the cradle is a critical moment, and at such moments the soul must be retained by guile. ‘Thus in Java when a child is placed on the ground for the first time…it is put in a hen-coop, and the mother makes a clucking sound as if she were calling hens’ (The Golden Bough i. 124).

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93 Etym. Mag. 383, 30. See further Hicks, Brit. Mus. Inscrr. iii. p. 85.Google Scholar

94 Callimachus, , Frag. 508Google Scholar tells against this. From evidence collected by W. Robert-Tornow, op. cit. pp. 34–35, it appears that in Egypt and other countries the bee was a royal symbol.

95 Pausanias VIII, xiii. 1.

96 Baumeister, , Denk. i. 131Google Scholar, Fig. 138.

97 Winckelmann and others explained the bee on coins as an appropriate emblem of a colony—a much less probable view, at any rate in the case of Ephesus.

98 Head, , Hist. Num. p. 494.Google Scholar

99 Ch. Morel in Daremberg, and Saglio, , Dict. Ant. I. i. pp. 304–5Google Scholar. I suspect that the coin of Abdera, described by F. Osann in the Arch. Zeit. vol. 10, col. 457 ff., is only another example of this type.

100 Imhoof-Blumer, , Monnaies Grecques, p. 45, No. 40Google Scholar; p. 46, No. 41.

101 Apoll. Rhod., Arg. iii. 1035Google Scholar, quoted by W. Robert-Tornow, op. cit. p. 144.

102 Riess, in Pauly's, Real-Encycl. ed. 2, col. 68, 52Google Scholar: ‘Die Bienen…verlangten auch keusche und reine Wärter’ (Pallad. i. 37, 4; iv. 15, 4). W. Robert-Tornow, op. cit. p. 12 ff., rightly derives this from the notorious fact that ‘apium…coitus visus est numquam‘(Pliny, , N.H. xi. 16Google Scholar); he cites Vergil, , Georg. iv. 197 ff.Google Scholar, Petronius, p. 878, Quintilian, , Decl. xiii. 16Google Scholar, &c. According to Aristotle, however, 761a 7

103 Eur., Hipp. 70 ff.Google Scholar

104 Aelian, , de nat. an. v. 49Google Scholar: the king bee Cp. Philes, , de an. prop. 553.Google Scholar

105 Schol. Pindar, , Pyth. iv. 104.Google Scholar

106 Frag. incert. 26.

107 Euteknios, , Metaphr. Nicand. Alex. 450Google Scholar, makes Demeter teach the bees how to construct their honeycombs in hollow trees.

108 Athen. 624 E. On Μ༵ιλινόη as an anti-phrastic name for Hekate or Empousa see Lobeck, , Aglaophamus, p. 818 n.Google Scholar

109 Ed. Dübner, p. 91.

110 W. Robert-Tornow, op. cit. p. 169, condemns as guilty of ‘maxima…interpretandi licentia’ Stieglitz' conjecture that the bee which figures occasionally on Athenian coins refers to the rites of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis.

111 Porphyr, , de antr. Nymph. 16.Google Scholar

112 Hygin., Fab. 182.Google Scholar

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114 Creuzer, , Symbolik iii. 353, 355.Google Scholar

115 Cornut. on Pers., Sat. i. 76.Google Scholar

116 Aristot., Frag. 468, 1555a 15.Google Scholar

117 Exe. pol. Heraclid. p. 13, 16, ed. Schn.

118 Etym. Mag. 213, 55, s.v. βρίσαι.

119 Oppian, , Ven. iv. 275.Google Scholar

120 Ed. Dübner, p. 28 f. Cp. the gloss of Hesychius:

121 See Froehner's Catalogue (large ed.).

122 Ed. 1886, Praef. xii.

123 This is the Orphic doctrine of the animarum descensus, or descent of the unborn soul through the heavenly spheres; see Lobeck, , Aglaophamus, p. 932 ff.Google Scholar

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125 Soph., Frag. 693.Google Scholar

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127 Wilkinson, , The Ancient Egyptians, ii. 415.Google Scholar

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129 Hom., Il. ii. 87 ff.Google Scholar

130 Hom., Il. xii. 167 ff.Google Scholar

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132 Hes., W. & D. 233.Google Scholar

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134 Ed. Bergk, vv. 171–4.

135 Judges xiv. 8.

136 Herod, v. 114.

137 Wilkinson, op. cit. ii. 416, agrees with De Pauw, and Birch his reviser does not dissent.

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141 Pollux, , Z. 147.Google Scholar

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143 Bull. arch. Sardo, 1855, p. 65; ‘séance de ľInst. arch. de Rome, 11 janv. 1856’; Arch. Zeit. (Anzeig.) 1857, p. 30.

144 Perrot-Chipiez, , Hist, de ľArt iii. 829Google Scholar, Fig. 591.

145 Lactant. i. 8, 8.

146 Brit. Mus. Cat. of Gems, No. 424.

147 Bull. de Corr. Hellénique, vol. 9, p. 197.

148 Porphyr., de ant. Nymph. 18Google Scholar; cp. ibid. 16, de abst. ii. 20.

149 Plutarch, , de cohib. ir. 464cGoogle Scholar. In the Batrachomyomachia 39 we find mention of Varro, , de re rustica III. xvi. 5Google Scholar, calls honey ‘et diis et hominibus acceptum.’

Perhaps more than a mere dietetic reform led the Pythagoreans to abjure wine and to feed on honey: Diog. Laert. VIII. i. 18 (leg. ) (In support of the correction I would cite Iamblichus, de Pyth. vit. xxi. 97 ) Sophocles, , O.C. 466 ffGoogle Scholar. describes a in honour of the Eumenides which involved the use of honey—wine being prohibited: Athenaeus, , Dcip. 693Google Scholar F, states that in Greece and W. Robert-Tornow, op. cit. p. 170, cites an ancient ring on which ‘apis invenitur, cuius caput sol ipse videtur esse.’ Suidas quotes Polemon to the effect that were offered in Athens to Mnemosyne, Eos, Helios, Selene, the Nymphs (cp. Paus. V. xv. 6), and Aphrodite Ourania (cp. Empedocles ap. Athen., Deip. 510 D)Google Scholar. See further Robertson-Smith, , Religion of the Semites, p. 208.Google Scholar

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151 Porphyr, , de ant. Nymph. 16Google Scholar. Cp. Xenophon, , exped. Cyr. IV. viii. 20Google Scholar, of the soldiers who ate poisonous honey in Asia Minor, Orph., Lith. 219 ffGoogle Scholar.

152 Nonnos, , Dion. xiii. 258–279Google Scholar and xix. 228–260.

153 Macrobius, , Sat. I. xii. 268Google Scholar. Similarly Epiphanius, , adv. haer. ii. 485Google Scholar (quoted by Lobeck, , Aglaophamus, p. 877Google Scholar), states that

154 Anth. Pal. vii. 55.

155 Hom., Odyss. x. 518 ff.Google Scholar

156 Pausaiiias V. xv. 6 regards the sacrifice of honey as a survival (ἀρχαῖόν τινα τρόπον) even where a libation of wine also was in vogue.

157 Cakes of wheat soaked in honey, called ὄμπαι, were offered to Demeter (Schol, on Nicander, , Alex. 450Google Scholar), and honey-cakes (? in the form of bees) to Adonis (Theocrit. Id. xv. 117–118).

158 Silius Italicus xiii. 415 f., 434, quoted by W. Robert-Tornow, op. cit. p. 141.

159 Apoll. Rhod. ii. 1272 ff.

160 Porphyr, , de antr. Nymph. 15.Google Scholar

161 Gubernatis, , Zoological Mythology ii. 216 ff.Google Scholar

162 Possibly this conception in Greece influenced the artistic representation of the soul. The minute winged forms that hover insect-like over the funeral stelai depicted on Attic lekuthoi are perhaps inspired by the idea that the soul appears as a bee. The same compromise between human and insect form would account for the wings attributed to the dead. In support of this it might be urged that a well-known vase in the Munich collection shows four winged figures emptying pitchers into a large jar sunk in the earth: and winged at once recall Callimachus’ line

163 Gnbernatis, op. cit. ii. 218 n. 2.

164 Idem, ibid. ii. 219.

165 Revue des Traditions Populaires, 1891, p. 154.

166 Ibid. 1891, p. 704.

167 Mosch, iii. 36 ff.

168 Lobeck, , Aglaoph. p. 817 f.Google Scholar