Final Draft - Preview Matter - Florida State University

centuries after his death. 50 Thus his opinions should not be taken uncritically as representative of
his time.
It is not until Lucian, a satirist like Juvenal, that one can point to a text that specifically
ridicules Egyptian worship of human-animal hybrids. But even in the text of Lucian, there is a
debate as to the merit of the Egyptian gods, and we are again dealing with a satirical author who
writes for dramatic effect. While the character of Momus in the Deorum Concilium attacks the
presence of theriomorphic and therianthropic gods on Mount Olympus, Zeus defends them. It is
thus difficult to state whether or not Lucian was in favor of animal cult.
As we can see from this brief literary survey one cannot demonstrate unequivocally a
dislike of animal worship among the Romans. The archaeological evidence introduced later in
this study in relation to the cult and mythical narratives of individual gods also bears out this
point. In the opinion of this author, those who exclude animal worship from the realms of
Etruscan and Roman religion are closed minded. The ancient peoples of Italy primarily
worshipped gods in anthropomorphic form, but conceiving of gods in the shape of man does not
strictly forbid the conception of gods as animals or a combination of man and beast.
Further reasons for not accepting the proposition that the classical world patently rejected
the idea of animal worship can be found in cult titles of various gods. In a Greek context, R.D.
Miller’s dissertation The Origin and Original Nature of Apollo addresses two of Apollo’s
epithets which seem to point in the direction of Apollo as a therianthropic deity, Apollo
Smintheus and Apollo Lykeios. 51 Apollo is here associated with two distinct animals, the mouse
and wolf respectively, which were important to two aspects of his cult. In both of these contexts,
Apollo is regarded as an animal and as the “averter” of the very same animal. To support
Apollo’s appearance as a sacred wolf, Miller notes that an inscription of the 5 th C BCE records
the presence of wolf-skins at the temple of Apollo in Delphi. 52 Miller draws support from
Farnell’s Cults of the Greek States, which refers to
… a very primitive period of religious thought when Apollo was still the wooddeity
of a race of hunters and shepherds, and the fierce beast of the wood was
regarded as his natural and sacred associate and occasional incarnation. 53
50 Green 2004, xiv.
51 Miller 1939, 34-7.
52 Miller 1939, 36. Farnell (1907, 117) proposes “that it was as ( or " ( that the god first delivered
his Pythian oracles, as in other places we find the wolf-god dealing in divination.” Richardson (1977, 93) also notes
the close connection between the wolf and Apollo at Delphi.
53 Farnell 1896-1909, iv.116. I shall return to this notion of the worship of therianthropes as primitive in a moment.
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