[103] Cic., speaking of the “translations” of Herakles and Romulus, says non corpora in caelum elata, non enim natura pateretur . . . (ap. Aug., CD. 22, 4); only their animi remanserunt et aeternitate fruuntur, ND. ii, 62; cf. iii, 12. Plu., Rom. 28, speaks in the same way of the old translation stories (those of Aristeas, Kleomedes, Alkmene, and finally Romulus)—it was not their bodies which had disappeared together with their souls, for it would be παρὰ τὸ εἰκός, ἐνθειάζειν τὸ θνητὸν τῆς φύσεως ἁμὰ τοῖς θείοις (cf. Pelop. 16 fin.); cf. also the Hymn (represented as ancient) of Philostr. dealing with the translated Achilles: Her. 741, p. 208, 24 ff. K.
[104] Celsus and Plutarch both know and describe the ancient cult and oracular power of Amphiaraos (only at Oropos now) as still in existence; the same applies to that of Trophonios (like that of Amphilochos also in Cilicia). An inscr. from Lebadeia (first half third century A.D.) mentions a priestess τῆς Ὁμονοίας τῶν Ἑλλήνων παρὰ τῷ Τροφωνίῳ, IG. Sept. i, 3426.
[105] Ἀστακίδην τὸν Κρῆτα, τὸν αἰπόλον, ἥρπασε νύμφη ἐξ ὀρέων καὶ νῦν ἱερὸς Ἀστακίδης (he has become divine, i.e. immortal): Call., Ep. 24. Of a similar character is the legend of Hylas: ἀφανὴς ἐγένετο, Ant. Lib. 26; and of Bormos among the Maryandynoi (νυμφόληπτος Hesych. Βῶρμον, ἀφανισθῆναι Nymphis, fr. 9). The Daphnis legend is another example, and even the story of Odysseus and Kalypso, who detains him in her cave and would like to make him immortal and ageless for ever, is in reality based on such legends of the Nymphs. (Even the name of the Nymph in this case indicates her power: to καλύπτειν her mortal lover, i.e. ἀφανῆ ποιεῖν.) Only in this case the spell is broken and the ἀπαθανάτισις of the translated lover is never carried out. For other exx. of legends of the love of Nymphs for a youth see Griech. Roman, 109, 1; a Homeric ex. in Ζ 21 of the νηὶς Ἀβαρβαρέη and Boukolion the son of Laomedon. The idea that a person translated by the nymphs did not die but lived on for ever, remained current: cf. inscr. from Rome, Epigr. Gr. 570, 9–10: τοῖς πάρος οὖν μύθοις πιστεύσατε· παῖδα γὰρ ἐσθλὴν ἥρπασεν ὡς τερπνὴν Ναΐδες, οὐ θάνατος. And again, n. 571: Νύμφαι κρηναῖαί με συνήρπασαν ἐκ βιότοιο, καὶ τάχα που τιμῆς εἵνεκα τοῦτ’ ἔπαθον.
[106] In the extravagant and fanatical worship of Dionysos that was transplanted from Greece to Italy and Rome in the year 186 B.C. the miracle of translation was carried out in a very practical fashion (belief in its possibility was evidently firmly established). Machines were prepared upon which those whose disappearance was to be effected were bound; they were then transferred by the machine in abditos specus; whereupon the miracle was announced: raptos a dis homines istos: Liv. 39, 13. This only becomes intelligible in the light of such legends of the translation of mortals, body and soul, to immortality, of which we have been speaking. [568]
[107] Plainly so in the case of Berenike the consort of Ptolemy Soter: Theoc. 17, 46. Theocritus addresses Aphrodite: σέθεν δ’ ἕνεκεν Βερενίκα εὐειδὴς Ἀχέροντα πολύστονον οὐκ ἐπέρασεν, ἀλλά μιν ἁρπάξασα πάροιθ’ ἐπὶ νῆα κατελθεῖν κυανέαν καὶ στυγνὸν ἀεὶ πορθμῆα καμόντων, ἐς ναὸν κατέθηκας, ἑᾶς δ’ ἀπεδάσσαο τιμᾶς (as θεὰ πάρεδορος or σύνναος: cf. Inscr. Perg. i, 246, 8). Cf. also Theoc. 15, 106 ff. As a rule, however, this idea is not so definitely expressed (though it is plainly implied that translation is the normal way in which deified princes depart this life, in the story indignantly rejected by Arrian, Anab. 7, 27, 3, that Alexander the Great wanted to throw himself into the Euphrates ὡς ἀφανὴς ἐξ ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος πιστοτέραν τὴν δόξαν παρὰ τοῖς ἔπειτα ἐγκαταλείποι ὅτι ἐκ θεοῦ τε αὐτῷ ἡ γένεσις συνέβη καὶ παρὰ θεοὺς ἡ ἀποχώρησις—which is the regular and ancient idea of translation, exhibited e.g. in the story of Empedokles’ end; see above, chap. xi, [n. 61]: and Christian pamphleteers transferred the fable to Julian and his end). The Roman Emperors also allowed such conventional miracles to be told of themselves, in which at least they were imitating the practice of the Hellenistic monarchs and the “consecration” fables usual at their death (they do not die but μεθίστανται ἐξ ἀνθρώπων, μεθ. εἰς θεούς, SIG1. 246, 16; Inscr. Perg. i, 249, 4; inscr. from Hierapolis given by Fränkel, ib. i, p. 39a). That the god is translated, his whole personality in caelum redit, is implied as occurring at the death of an Emperor on the coins of consecration, in which the translated is represented as being carried up to heaven by a Genius or a bird (e.g. the eagle which was set free at the rogus of the emperor: D.C. 56, 42, 3; 74, 5, 5; Hdn. 4, 2 fin.): see Marquardt, Röm. Staatsverw. 3, 447, 3. Nor were there lacking people who maintained on oath that they had actually witnessed the translation of the emperor body and soul to heaven, as had once happened to Julius Proculus and Romulus. Thus at the end of Augustus’ life: D.C. 56, 46, 2. and that of Drusilla: 59, 11, 4. Sen., Apocol. 1. It was the official and only recognised manner in which a god can leave this life.
[108] Phdr. 246 CD. πλάττομεν . . . θεὸν, ἀθάνατόν τι ζῷον, ἔχον μὲν ψυχήν, ἔχον δὲ σῶμα, τὸν ἀεὶ δὲ χρόνον ταῦτα ξυμπεφυκότα. In acc. with the will of the δημιουργός body and soul in the gods remain joined together (though in itself τὸ δεθὲν πᾶν λυτόν. It is to this that Klearch. alludes ap. Ath. 15, 670 B, ὅτι λυτὸν [λύεται the MSS.] μὲν πᾶν τὸ δεδεμένον): hence they are ἀθάνατοι, Tim. 41 AB.
[109] Hasisatra, Enoch: see above, chap. ii, [n. 18]. Moses, too, was translated acc. to later legend, and Elijah (cf. after the battle of Panormos Hamilcar disappears and for that reason is worshipped with sacrifice: Hdt. vii, 166–7). In Egypt too: D.S. 1, 25, 7, speaks of the ἐξ ἀνθρώπων μετάστασις, i.e. translation, of Osiris (for the expression cf. Κάστωρ καὶ Πολυδεύκης ἐξ ἀνθρώπων ἠφανίσθησαν, Isoc., Archid. (6), 18, etc., frequently).
[110] Stories of the disappearance (non comparuit, nusquam apparuit = ἠφανίσθη) of Aeneas and Turnus, King Latinus, Romulus and others: Preller, Röm. Myth.2, pp. 84–5; 683, 2; 704. Anchises: Procop., Goth. iv, 22 fin.
[111] So too Caesar in deorum numerum relatus est non ore modo decernentium sed et persuasione volgi, Suet., Jul. 88.
[112] D.C. 79, 18.—It is natural to suppose that some prophecy of the return of the great Macedonian was current and encouraged the attempt to turn the prophecy into a reality and predisposed people to believe in it. This at least is what happened in the case of Nero [569] and the false Fredericks of the middle ages. This seems to have been at the back of the superstitious cult of Alexander particularly flourishing just at that time (cf. the story told of the family of the Macriani by Treb. Poll. xxx Tyr. 14, 4–6). Caracalla (Aur. Vict., Epit. 21; cf. Hdn. 4, 8; D.C. 77, 7–8) and Alexander Severus actually regarded themselves as Avatars of Alexander reborn and incarnated in themselves (the latter was first called Alexander at his elevation to the principate, certainly ominis causa, and was supposed to have been born, on the anniversary of Alexander’s death, in A.’s temple: Lamprid., Al. Sev. 5, 1; 13, 1, 3, 4. He paid special honour to Alex., and as we are expressly told by Lamp. 64, 3, se magnum Alexandrum videri volebat).