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ANTS, GIANT

KLAUS KARTTUNEN

University of Helsinki

The main part of Herodotus’ excursus on INDIA is the account of the ferocious gold‐digging giant ants, as told by Persians (3.102–5). These ants (μύρμηκες) are smaller than DOGS but larger than foxes and live in a DESERT north of India. The Indians living near BACTRIA undertake an expedition to rob the gold‐sand dug up by them, which they use to pay their TRIBUTE to the Persian Empire. The account can be compared with the gold‐guarding GRIFFINS of the far north (3.116.1; 4.27) and has some parallels in Chinese tradition. More important is that ant‐gold or GOLD dug by ants is also found in Indian tradition (Mahābhārata, Buddhist sources, etc.: see von Hinüber 1985, 1123–24). Ant stories and ant gold are also known in Tibet and Mongolia (Laufer 1908), but the sources are late and could have Indian or western origins. A little more than a century after Herodotus, Megasthenes (see BNJ 715 F23) seems to locate the ants in Dardistan (northern Pakistan), but this tradition may be independent of Herodotus. They are also mentioned quite often in later literature—as late as 1786 it was still suggested that they were really living in some unknown corner of Central Asia.

A number of theories have been proposed as explanation, but few seem convincing. The Tibetan miners of Schiern (1873) can be put aside as can badgers, leopards, and pangolins, not to speak of the fantastic combinations of characteristics of two animals and of “ant‐like” gold grains. The old marmot theory, proposed as early as Malte‐Brun (1819, 380–81), has surfaced again and again (e.g., Peissel 1984) and seems to be the most popular, but it is not clear how peaceful marmots were turned into ferocious ants. The most reasonable explanation is perhaps given by Tarn (1951, 106–8; see further Karttunen 1989, 171–76), who saw it as a story invented by traders bringing gold from Siberia or somewhere else in order to hide its real origin.

The gold‐digging ants created a lasting tradition. Nearchus (BNJ 133 F8) claimed to have seen their skins during the Indian campaign of Alexander III of Macedon (329–327 BCE). Pliny the Elder (HN 11.111) had seen their horns brought to the West. Pomponius Mela, Lucian, and Aelian knew them. Some authors (SOPHOCLES, Agatharchides, Solinus) located them in ETHIOPIA.