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An Onocephalic Mask
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 August 2011
Extract
The fourth oration of Libanius, an invective against a consularis Syriae of 389, contains a passage of unique interest (Or. iv,37). In the catalogue of this governor's misdeeds, not the least of which was that he had dubbed the celebrated rhetor of Antioch a “silly fool” (λῆρος), we read that Eutropius was unduly harsh in meting out punishment for minor criminal offenses. Specifically, he had not only permitted men to be flogged to death, but just the day before he had revived a refinement of indignity which had been long in abeyance because it was insulting to the regime: πληγῶν εἶδος πολὺν ἤδη χρόνον ἐξεληλαμένον ὡς ὑβρίζον τὸ σχῆμα τῆς πολιτείας, ἀνενεώσατο, κτλ. This consisted of placing an appliance of some sort—either a donkey's nose-bag, or else a mask resembling a donkey's face—over the face of the prisoner who was being flogged. The purpose was to arouse mirth and laughter at the expense of the culprit; to this end “the bell” contributed (ποιοῦντός τι καὶ τοῦ κώδωνος), and an incidental advantage was that the victim's tears were concealed, so that they won no pity from the onlookers.
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- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1955
References
1 My friend, Mr. A. F. Norman, of University College, Hull, would so take it (per litteras). Cf. χιλωκτής in P. Mich. VI, 421 (line 24), a hapax legomenon which may have this meaning. The πῖλος ἐφίππειος in Plutarch, Artaxerxes, 11, was obviously not a feed-bag, but rather a covering of some kind for the animal's head.
2 Donkeys are represented in ancient art with bells attached in this fashion; see H. Leclercq, in Cabrol, Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, I, 2060–61, Plates 601–602. The donkeys in Lucian, Asinus, 48, and Apuleius, Met., x,18, are described as indiscriminately spangled with bells.
3 ProfessorBonner, , Harvard Theol. Rev., XLVI (1953) 47–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 It might, however, be added to Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Realencyclopädie, s.v. “Esel,” VI, 626–76, and “ΙΙῖλος,” XX, 1330–33.
5 See Mommsen, , Römisches Strafrecht (Leipzig 1899) 984Google Scholar.
6 Cf. Trajan's letter to Pliny, forbidding attention to be paid to anonymous denunciations lodged against Christians (Ep. x,97): nec nostri saeculi est.
7 See Minucius Felix, Octavius, ix,3: Audio eos turpissimae pecudis caput, videlicet caput asini consecratum inepta nescio qua persuasione venerari; ibid., xxviii,7: Inde est quod audire te dicis, caput asini rent nobis esse divinam; Tertullian, Apologeticum, xvi,1–5, Ad nationes, i,11 and 14. Tertullian says that Christianity inherited this calumny from the Jews (cf. Tacitus, Hist., v,4; Plutarch, Quaestiones Conviviales, iv,5.2 [Moralia, 670 D–E]; Josephus, Contra Apionem, ii,7 and 9), and he tells of a gladiator in Carthage, an apostate Jew, who displayed a picture inscribed “Deus Christianorum Onokoites,” showing the toga-clad deity with an ass's ears, a hoof for a foot, and a book in one hand. On the archaeological side, we have especially the famous graffito from the Palatine, commonly dated in the third century. This depicts a crucified slave with an ass's head (or mask?), and another slave, called Alexamenus, worshipping him; see Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, I, 1575, Fig. 2084, and Leclercq, op. cit. (in note 2, above), I, 2044, Plate 585. For further evidence, with discussion, see Leclercq, op. cit., I, 2041–47 (especially a terra-cotta from Syria, showing Jesus with an ass's ears, carrying the book of the Evangels under one arm); Reinach, S., Cultes, mythes, et religions (Paris 1908), I, 342–46Google Scholar; Jacoby, A., Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, XXV (1927) 265–82Google Scholar; and de Labriolle, P., Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, II, 1809–16, and La Réaction païenne (Paris 1934) 193–99Google Scholar.
8 For Eutropius' biography, see Seeck, O., Die Briefe des Libanius zeitlich geordnet (Leipzig 1906) 153Google Scholar (No. V), and Realencyclopädie, VI, 1520 (No. 4). A Christian predecessor of his, the consularis Syriae Lucianus, had administered severe floggings in 387–88 (Liban., Or. lvi, 6), but of course he can hardly have used the mask.
9 E. Skard, Symbolae Osloenses, XXV (1947) 80–82, has called attention to another curious form of punishment inflicted in the Late Empire. A soldier guilty of a serious military infraction was stigmatized, though not physically injured, when his cloak was removed and burnt in his stead, but before this was done a purple insigne of some sort was removed from it, in order not to insult the emperor. The source is a recently published homily of Asterius “the Sophist,” who flourished in the time of Constantine. For present purposes, the value of this text is to show that precautions had to be taken against exacting a penalty in a manner symbolically offensive to the imperial majesty.
10 Jacoby, op. cit. (in note 7, above), held that the onomorphic god represented Kronos-Saturn, but it would be difficult to interpret the wearers of the donkey-masks in Antioch as in some sense reluctant kings of the Saturnalia. To mention only one obstacle: though an animal masquerade was a feature of the festival of the Kalends in those parts of the empire where Celtic influence was felt (see M. P. Nilsson, Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, XIX [1917] 71–82), it was apparently unknown in Syria; at least, as Professor Nilsson has observed (op. cit., 79), Libanius makes no mention of it in his descriptions of that festival as celebrated in Antioch (Or. ix, Εἰς τὰς καλάνδας, Vol. IV, pp. 391–98, Foerster; Ἔκφρασις καλανδῶν, Vol. VIII, pp. 472–77).
Professor Nock calls my attention to Bächtold-Stäubli, Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, s.v. “Hut,” IV, 529, where we read that it was once a custom in Germany to place a sort of fool's cap on the head of a person undergoing punishment; for example, a heretic was obliged to wear a paper cap shaped like a bishop's mitre, with devils painted upon it. Professor Nock suggests that this practice may have survived until fairly recent times in the form of the dunce's cap with which stupid schoolboys were crowned. However old this custom may be, it seems akin in spirit, at least, to the use of the donkey-cap in Antioch.