Since time immemorial, a person is afraid of two things - large predators and various poisonous creatures. And if you combine the sources of both these fears in one being? Moreover, to attribute to the new "breed" a tendency to cannibalism? Obviously, such a beast should no longer cause fear, but horror. And such a monster has been known to people for 25 centuries under the name "manticore".
The manticore has the body and paws of a lion. The head of a man. Shark teeth - in three rows. A scorpion's tail, ending in a venomous sting that is fatal. On both sides of the tail there are battle spines, with which the monster can shoot at the victim.
These "arrows" are thin, long and also poisonous. When one of them leaves the "clip", a new one immediately grows in its place. All these tools are given to the chimera in order to easily get their favorite food - human meat. It moves in large, fast leaps. There are also winged varieties.
Among the representatives of the current European civilization, the inhabitants of Ancient Greece were the first to get acquainted with the manticore. Such a "gift" was made to them by a man who told about the mysterious one-horned donkey, which by the will of fate later became a unicorn. Regular readers of our column remember that the name of the talkative storyteller was Ctesias of Cnidus.
He lived in the 4th century BC. e. He was born and educated in Greece, but then ended up in Persia, where he served as a personal royal physician for seventeen years. First - with Darius II, and then - with Artaxerxes Mnemon.
The then Persia was a huge power. Her possessions stretched from the Indus River in the east to the Aegean Sea in the west, from Armenia in the north to the first Nile threshold in the south. Ctesias treated not just a monarch, but the "lord of the world", the ruler of the most ancient empire in the history of mankind, which united dozens of countries and peoples under the rule of Persian kings from the Achaemenid dynasty.
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From different parts of Persia, taxes, goods, people, rumors and legends flocked to its main cities - Susa and Persepolis. Ctesias, possessing, in addition to the skills of a healer, also a literary talent, listened, memorized, and wrote down. Returning to his homeland, he stated his impressions on paper - he published several books, two of them - "Peach" and "Indica" - became very popular.
The second book contained descriptions of fantastic creatures, which, according to rumors, reaching the palace chambers where Ctesias worked, swarmed India. Of course, the court healer himself had no time to walk around this country. The manticore also appears to have been the product of one of these rumors. (There is, however, an assumption that the Greek himself "provided" this creature with Indian roots.)
However, the image of the diva is still inspired not by Eastern legends, but by the pompous imperial art of the Achaemenid country. Suffice it to say that the plot "The Tsar-Hero Defeats the Monster" was often found in the bas-reliefs of Persepolis, and fantastic animals of a frightening appearance were often depicted on carved stone state seals. In addition, with all the incredible diversity of the Hindu pantheon, there is no creature similar to the manticore in it. And the very name of the monster is a distorted version of the Persian word "martikora" (from martiya - man and khvar - to devour). Simply put, "manticore" is a "cannibal".
A NIGHTMARE IN TIGER'S SKIN?
With all the popularity of Ctesias's "travel" essays, healthy skepticism towards our hero appeared soon after their publication. Aristotle was the first to cautiously express doubt. In his "History of Animals" (IV century BC), he wrote: "Something similar exists if you believe Ctesias." Aristotle was a practitioner.
Dissecting various representatives of the fauna with his own hand, he knew their appearance well. It was difficult for him to believe in the existence of a beast with a human face and a scorpion sting. However, as a true scientist, Aristotle could not ignore the available information. Therefore, I included the manticore in my summary, giving an exact link to the source of information.
More openly expressed his distrust in the 2nd century AD. e. Greek traveler and writer Pausanias (Pausanias). He was born in Lydia (Asia Minor) and from a young age traveled a lot around the world. Visited Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Italy, Corsica and Sardinia.
Traveled the length and breadth of Greece. Pausanias published his travel notes in the form of a voluminous ten-volume work entitled "Description of Hellas". This book can be considered the world's first travel guide. Pausanias paid a lot of attention to historical sights, architecture, art, legends and myths. The "Description of Hellas" was compiled so carefully and reliably that the famous archaeologist Schliemann, while excavating the royal tombs in Mycenae, used this edition as a reference book.
Despite his love for legends and traditions, Pausanias treated the manticore rather disrespectfully. He stated that this poisonous man-eater with a human face is … just a tiger. The Indians, the author argued, are so afraid of the striped beast that they attribute supernatural properties to it.
Well, perhaps Pausanias is right. In any case, it is difficult to imagine an animal more worthy to be the prototype of the manticore than this predator.
Despite the "incomplete correspondence" to the status of a real creature, the monster did not disappear in the ancient era. Having got back in the 1st century A. D. e. in the "Natural history" of Pliny the Elder, from there in the III century it migrated to the book of the Roman writer Gaius Julius Solin, which was called "Collectanea rerum memorabilium", or "Collection of things worthy of mention."
Written very vividly, the book was entertaining reading for educated people. There were collected many curiosities, descriptions of unusual phenomena and unseen animals. Over time, Solin's work completely overshadowed the works of Pliny and Pausanias in popularity.
It was the "Collection …" that gave the manticore a ticket to the Middle Ages, which she, of course, did not fail to use. By the way, it was during this period that the creature, eager for people, received a "registration". She was "settled" southeast of the northern shores of the Caspian Sea, that is, on the territory of present-day Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.