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KELCY SAGSTETTER

United States Naval Academy

Aristeas was a poet from PROCONNESUS (BA 52 B3, modern Marmara) who claimed to have traveled first to the land of the SCYTHIANS, then further north to the ISSEDONES at the command of APOLLO. There he learned about the one‐eyed ARIMASPIANS and the GRIFFINS who guarded their GOLD, as well as the HYPERBOREANS, mythical devotees of Apollo (4.13–16). Herodotus is openly skeptical about this journey, as is STRABO, who calls Aristeas a charlatan (13.1.16/C589). Aristeas’ mostly non‐extant poem, the Arimaspea, recounts how the Arimaspians attacked their neighbors the ISSEDONES (Bolton 1962, 1–38). Aristeas was also allegedly able to disappear and reappear at will and be present in two places at once; he flew to METAPONTUM as a crow 247 years after his last appearance, where he commanded the citizens to erect a statue to him (Hdt. 4.15; Bolton 1962, 119–41). These supernatural stories suggest eastern shamanic influences, which made him a popular figure with the Pythagoreans (Corcella in ALC, 548–53, 582–86; Bolton 1962, 142–75; Birch 1950, 80–81). Aristeas’ floruit is most likely the seventh century BCE, though the Suda (s.v. Ἀριστέας (A 3900)) makes him a contemporary of CROESUS in the sixth century.

SEE ALSO: Caÿstrobius; Cimmerians; Poetry; Travel