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Hittitology today: Studies on Hittite and Neo-Hittite Anatolia in Honor of Emmanuel Laroche’s 100th Birthday

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Alice Mouton

II. Philologie et histoire des religions

Sandas in translation

Ian Rutherford

Texte intégral

Thanks to Alice Mouton for inviting me to participate; thanks also, for advice on specific points, to Sanna Aro and Heather Baker.

Introduction: From Santa(s) to Sandas/Sandon

  • 1 See e.g., Lebrun 1987b.
  • 2 The closest comparandum is Kubaba of Carchemish, though in that case the Greco-Roman reception is l (...)
  • 3 “Sandes” is found in Nonnus, Dion.34.192, Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. ’Άδανα and the Byzantine his (...)
  • 4 For the onomastics, see below p. 84.

1Few deities of Late Bronze Age Anatolia have been shown to continue down to the 1st millennium BC.1 The one with the most conspicuous reception in the Greco-Roman period seems to be Santa(s), who is known to have survived in different forms from the 18th century BC till the mid 1st millennium AD, attested principally in the same general area of central and southern Anatolia.2 In the Greco-Roman period the god is known either as “Sandas” (Ionic “Sandes”) or “Sandon”,3 especially associated with the city of Tarsos, and often equated with a Greek deity, Heracles. A key factor in the survival of Santa(s) from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age, when so many deities disappeared, may have been the long-term stability of areas where he was located, Tarsus in particular; somehow, the cult resisted external political and religious pressures. The conservative onomastics of the region suggest that Luwian culture survived particularly well in Cilicia, and it may also be that the resilience of Santa(s)/ Sandas is due to the fact that he remained deeply embedded in the local religious traditions of the region.4

  • 5 Armenia: Greppin 1978; Minoan Crete: see below n. 22; India: Hrozný 1941: 228; Carruba 2000: 61-63.
  • 6 Christianity: Böhlig 1913; Schoeps 1959: 165, Hengel 1997: 167; cf. Nock 1961: 582-583.
  • 7 See, for example, Laroche’s study of the etymology of the Greek Word for ivory (1965), subsequently (...)

2Sandas has fascinated many generations of scholars, and exotic links have been alleged between him and various ancient cultures including Armenia, Minoan Crete and India.5 It has even been claimed the Sandas of Tarsos influenced early Christian doctrine.6 On the Greco-Roman reception of Santa(s), the fundamental work remains that of Emmanuel Laroche in his contribution to the volume Les syncrétismes dans les religions grecque et romaine (Laroche 1973). Laroche was well equipped for the task, having done important work on ancient Greek language in his early career.7 The first pages of his article present a masterly survey of syncretism between Anatolian and Greek religion in the West. While his general position on the subject is that little can be proved, especially in the West, Laroche saw Sandas-Heracles as a rare example of a successful syncretism between the cultures. However, he refrained from speculation about on the circumstances by which the syncretism came about.

  • 8 See Smith 2008.

3The purpose of this paper is to fill in the part omitted by Laroche, looking at how the identification with Heracles may have come about. I shall also take the opportunity of mentioning some new evidence, discovered in the last forty years, which complicates the picture. My emphasis will be less on “syncretism”, which implies some degree of fusion between two deities from different religious traditions, and more on “translation”, which is the practical convention using the name of a deity from one religious tradition as an equivalent of a deity in another one. Such a practice of “translating gods” may have implied the deities are the same at some level, despite the differences in their local manifestations, though it does not imply fusion between them.8

A history of Santa(s)

The second millennium: Santa(s)-Marduk

  • 9 The bibliography is large: for the second millennium see, besides Laroche 1973, Kammenhuber 1990, D (...)
  • 10 Laroche 1966: 156-157; Polvani 2002: 646 (Siege of Uršu CTH 7).
  • 11 KUB 54.24; Polvani 2002: 646.
  • 12 Popko 1987; Haas 1994: 467.
  • 13 Beckman in RlA 12: 6; Polvani 2002: 645-646. Another text with Luwian content in which he appears i (...)
  • 14 Polvani 2002: 647 and 652. Laroche 1973: 111 and n. 2 suggested the name meant “angry”; contra Kamm (...)
  • 15 KUB 38.10 iii 9-13. Mastrocinque 2007: 202-203 suggests that a later resonance of the name Iyaya ca (...)

4Santa(s) was already a complex deity in the second millennium.9 He can be traced back as far as the Old Hittite period, and personal names based on the theonym are found as far back as the Assyrian Trading Colonies.10 Hittite texts refer to a cult of his in Sarissa in the Sivas province,11 and the fact that in one text his cult is associated with two forms of sea deity suggests the vicinity of the southern coast.12 It seems likely that Santa(s) either was originally a Luwian deity, or became one since he appears in the Luwian ritual of Zarpiya, associated with the Innarawantes or Annarummenzi-deities as well as the Lulahhi-deities; in addition, some theophoric names containing his name seem to be Luwian.13 In Zarpiya’s ritual he seems to be associated with plague and war, but otherwise it is difficult to characterize him.14 According to a cult inventory from the otherwise unknown town of Tapparutani he was represented as a standing male figure standing with a seated partner Iyaya.15

  • 16 In theory, Marduk might have become known when Mursili I sacked Babylon; the “Marduk Prophecy” (see (...)
  • 17 Polvani 2002. Also one of Maštigga’s rituals: see Miller 2004: 151; Smith 2008.
  • 18 Laroche 1973: 110-111; Polvani 2002: 652.

5His name was more often than not written AMAR.UTU-, AMAR.UTU (“calf of the sun”) being the conventional sumerogram for the Babylonian god Marduk, and the ending -aš indicating that the name is to be read as “Santa(s)”. Marduk had become known to the Hittites in the 14th century, and the writing AMAR.UTU without the suffix also occurs in Hittite texts.16 Such a writing surely implies a perceived equivalence between two deities: the most obvious point of similarity is that both are young male gods whose principal attribute is physical force. Polvani has suggested that another point of contact was that both deities were associated with exorcism and magic, as we find them in Zarpiya’s ritual.17 A further question is how widespread was this “interpretatio Babyloniaca” of Santa(s) as Marduk: was it confined to scribes, or was scribal practice reflecting a much broader currency? Laroche himself was cautious about seeing anything beyond mechanical “allographie” (Laroche 1973: 110-111). Notice, however, that one of the Luwian incantations in Zarpiya’s ritual is addressed to Ea, Marduk’s father (§ 21), which, as Polvani has pointed out, suggests that the “Mardukisation” of Santa(s) was not just a textual phenomenon.18

The early first millennium: Santa(s)-Marduk redivivus?

6After the end of the Hittite kingdom, nothing is known about Santa(s) until the early Neo-Assyrian period, from when we have two types of evidence. The first type is inscriptions:

    • 19 CHLI 1.2, 558-9 (X.3); Hawkins 1981: 174, no 31b.

    a stone bowl, perhaps from 9th century BC (BEIRUT), has an inscription “I am Iya, beloved servant of Santa(s)”, and a curse formula in the name of Karhuha, Kubaba and Santa(s).19

    • 20 CHLI 1.2, 488 (X.21), line § 6. Notice also ERKILET 1 (CHLI 1.2: 494) which refers to the deity ma- (...)
    • 21 4a in Gusmani 1964-86; see Melchert 2002. For these deities see also Archi 2010: 25.
    • 22 See Melchert 2002. The combination of Santi (Santa(s)) and Kapupi (Kubaba?) may also occur in an in (...)
    • 23 There is an instance in the ritual of Allī of Arzawa, and in KUB 54.65 ii 11, which is now supposed (...)

    A hieroglyphic Luwian inscription from Kululu in Cappadocia (KULULU 2) (mid 8th BC) mentions the “dark deities (marwainzi) of Santa(s)”.20 This can be compared to a Lydian inscription from the necropolis of Sardes (Achaemenid period), which invokes as protecting deities Santa(s), Kuwawa (Kubaba) and the Marivdas.21 The Marivdas must be same as the Luwian marwainzi, and the combination of these with Santa(s) in a curse formula is thus a striking religious meme linking central and western Anatolia.22 Late Bronze Age attestations of the marwainzi deities follow a similar distribution.23

  • 24 Goetze 1939: no 7.5; Pruzsinszky in PNAE 3.1: 1087-1088, mentions also another Sandapi who was a ve (...)
  • 25 cf. Melchert 2013: 36; RlA s.v.
  • 26 Pruzsinszky in PNAE 3:1: 1087-1088; ead. in RlA; for the meaning of the name see Starke 1990: 155-1 (...)

7Secondly, we have indirect onomastic evidence from the 7th century: an Assyrian tablet from Tarsus records the name Sandapi.24 Assurbanipal’s Annals (7th BC) mention a king of Hilakku called Sandasarme, a name which combines the names of the gods Santa(s) and Šarruma.25 Before that there is reference to a Sandauarri (“Santa(s) is my help”), a king of Kundi and Sissu who rebelled against Esarhaddon.26

  • 27 Dalley 1999; endorsed by Haider 2006.
  • 28 The source is the “Sin of Sargon” text: Livingstone 1989: 77-79.
  • 29 Dalley 1999: 73-74; Jacoby 680 F7 (IIIC, 386, 23).
  • 30 She points to images of Assyrian gods standing on a horned creature such as one of the rock-inscrip (...)

8Stephanie Dalley27 has argued that the equation between Santa(s) and Marduk continued into the Neo-Assyrian period, and that the cult of Santa(s)-Marduk was promoted in Tarsus by Sennacherib around 700 BC after he was informed by prophets that the death of his father Sargon II in battle in South East Anatolia was a consequence of his neglecting the gods of Babylon in favour of those of Assyria.28 She points to a statement in the Armenian version of Eusebius’ Chronicon (3rd century AD), which may go back to Berossos, that Sennacherib, having defeated the Greeks in Cilicia, built Tarsus “in the image of Babylon”, a phrase which she interprets as a translation of Akkadian terminology.29 In her view, the Assyrians chose Tarsus because of the pre-existing equation there between Santa(s) and Marduk. She argues that the Assyrians must have rebuilt the temple and the cult-image, which is why the iconography of Santa(s) as known from later sources looks Assyrian.30

The Hellenistic and Roman periods: Sandas-Heracles

  • 31 Melchert 2002 has argued for a Lycian reflex, suggesting that hatahe in the Xanthos stele might ref (...)

9For the fifth-fourth centuries, there is little or no evidence, with one significant exception: it is possible that some deities represented on coins from Tarsus in this period represent Sandas albeit under a different name; I shall discuss this evidence in section I.4.31

  • 32 LGPN 5B: 377-378.
  • 33 Apollodorus, Library 3.14.3 (Appendix #4). A deity called Sanerges seems to have been worshipped in (...)

10The deity is much better attested for the Hellenistic and Roman periods. From the 3rd-2nd centuries BC names based on the theonym are found in Cilicia, Caria and Lycia:32 Sandatis from Corycus (2nd BC), Sandis from Caria (3rd-2nd BC), Sandon from Tarsus (2nd BC) and Corycus (3rd/2nd BC). Around this time Sandon may have become an alternative form of the god’s name, and the tradition that Celenderis in Cilicia was founded by Sandokos of Syria may go back to this period as well.33

  • 34 See Houwink ten Cate 1961: 136-137; Jasink 1991. Examples are: Sandazamis: Olba (1BC). Craig Melche (...)
  • 35 See Grimal 1945-46. Sandon may also have been the name of a scholar on the Orphic Poems (West 1983: (...)

11In the Roman period many more personal names based on the god’s name are found, mostly from Cilicia, but also from Lycaonia and Lycia. These even survive into the Christian period, e.g. Sandogenes from Anazarbos (524 AD).34 Sandon was the name of the father of Athenodorus from Cana near Tarsus, one of Augustus’ teachers and a friend of Strabo the geographer.35

12Second, we have a number of literary sources, some of them already presupposing the identification with Heracles. These are all from the Roman or early Byzantine periods, but it is likely that some of the information is reproduced from much earlier traditions. I have collected these in the Appendix. Some of the information in these seems fantastic, for example the report in John the Lydian (6th century AD; apparently based on much earlier Roman sources) that the name Sandas goes back to the dress (sandux) worn by Heracles when he was serving as a slave to Omphale in Lydia (see Appendix #1). Particularly valuable is the evidence provided by Stephanos of Byzantium (6th century AD), who places Sandes in the context of a genealogy of the gods: Adanos (eponym of the city of Adana) was son of Earth and Heaven, along with Ostasos, Sandes, Kronos, Rhea, Iapetos and Olumbros. Sandes is thus a Titan, on a par with Kronos and Rhea. This genealogy could perhaps go back to Athenodorus of Cana (see the discussion in Appendix #2).

  • 36 Apollo of the Trident is the subject of a study by Chuvin 1981, who argues that this is an ancient (...)

13For the idea of Sandas being a Titan, there is supporting evidence in the proem of Tarsian Oration (Or.33) by Dio “Chrysostomos” of Prusa (about 100 AD). Dio does not mention Sandas by name, but he refers to Heracles as one of the gods of the city, between Perseus and “he of the trident” (the last seems to be a local form of Apollo, Apollo Tarsios).36 He says of the Tarsians: “you have as founders heroes or demigods – or should I say Titans”. The idea that the founders were Titans, and that one of them was Sandas/Heracles could thus be an authentic Tarsian tradition.

  • 37 Or. 33.47. Heracles is also designated “Founder” on coins: see Chuvin 1981: 319 and SNG France 2, 1 (...)
  • 38 Lucian, Syrian Goddess 49 with Lightfoot 2003: 503-504; Nilsson 1923.
  • 39 For this, see PW s.v. Oeta 2298 and Jones 1984. Not all scholars have accepted the idea of a self-i (...)

14Later on Dio refers to the “founder” Heracles being summoned by a pyre.37 Pyres have various uses in the ritual practice of Greece and the Ancient Near East,38 but in the context of Heracles, one thinks first of his mythical immolation on the pyre on Mt Oeta, which may have had a ritual correlate.39 Another writer

  • 40 Amores 1, 54.

15of the early Roman Emperor, Lucian of Samosata in his Amores refers to a pyre burned for Heracles which he says resembles the mythical immolation of Heracles on Mt. Oeta, and Christopher Jones has argued that the Amores is set in Tarsus. If that is right, it suggests that an immolation ritual of Heracles-Sandas may have been practiced at Tarsus in the Roman period, though it falls short of proof (this may just have been Lucian’s interpretation), and it certainly does prove that there was an immolation ritual centuries earlier.40

The 5th Century BC: Sandas-Nergal?

  • 41 See Goldman 1950-63: 1.337-338 and Goldman 1940.
  • 42 An early example is SNG Paris 1327 (= 1154) (2nd century BC). See Pohl 2004: 74-75; for coins from (...)
  • 43 On one coin, the monument has ΣΑΝ written next to it, which might perhaps be an abbreviation for “S (...)
  • 44 Pohl 2004: 77; Goldman 1940: 550; Dalley 1999: 74-75 suggests a resemblance to Marduk’s mushussu-dr (...)
  • 45 See Pohl 2004: 80, who sees the bow-case as a clear Assyrian trait, although the polos head-gear he (...)

16Fragments of terracotta plaques found at the site of Gözlükule (i.e. Hellenistic Tarsus) represent a deity with axe and bow-case, standing on a horned and apparently hybrid animal resembling a horned lion, framed by a triangular structure resting on a rectangular structure, which together have become known as the “Sandon-Monument”.41 A similar figure, appears on local coins from the 2nd century BC onwards, sometimes without the framing of the structures.42 The figure is not named, but the scholarly consensus is that it represents Sandas, who was without doubt the most important Tarsian deity of this period.43 The Hittites already represented gods standing on animals, but the apparently hybrid nature of the animal has suggested scholars that the iconography is influenced by (though perhaps not directly modelled on) 1st millennium Assyrian iconography.44 The iconography of the deity also seems in general to point towards Assyria, though some elements have good Hittite antecedents.45

  • 46 Frazer 1927: 126-127; for earlier reference see Cook 1914-40: I 600 n. 7; cf. Bonnet 1988: 154.
  • 47 Cook 1914-40: I 600-603; Goldman 1940; Seyrig 1959: 48.
  • 48 Ehling 2004a: 142.

17Even before the discovery of the plaques, scholars were speculating on the meaning of the structure depicted on the coins. James Frazer argued that it represented the pyre on which “Sandan” underwent ritual immolation, as Heracles is supposed to have done in myth and possibly ritual on Mt. Oeta.46 But even if the immolation of Sandas-Heracles was enacted at Tarsus, it is far from certain that it is represented in the official iconography in this way. For A. B. Cook, the structure resembled a sacred mountain. For Henri Seyrig it was a pyramid structure framing the dedication.47 More recently Kay Ehling has suggested that it is the central part of an altar-construction.48

  • 49 Jenkins 1972 and Jenkins 1973; Mildenberg 1973; Chuvin 1981: 321, n. 48. See Pohl 2004: 84-85 for a (...)
  • 50 The one with the double axe is Chuvin type 3, Mildenberg no 5.
  • 51 For Nergal, Lipinski 1995: 243-244. Schwartz 2005 had argued that the Persian theonym Khshathrapati (...)

18In the early 1970s numismatologists drew attention to a group of five coins from the late 5th and early 4th century Tarsus which depict a deity similar in appearance to the one from the “Sandon-Monument”, although the monument itself is not depicted.49 Sometimes the figure is standing on an animal (apparently a lion), sometimes he is not, and in one case he is holding a double axe.50 Accompanying captions identify the figure as NRGL TRZ, attesting the presence at Tarsus of Nergal, the ancient Mesopotamian and Assyrian deity of war and death.51 Probably we should assume an otherwise unattested Tarsian cult of Nergal with Assyrianizing iconography, introduced either under the Persian Empire or before.

  • 52 Chuvin 1981 suggests that Nergal is the Aramaic interpretatio of Sandas, just as Hercules was the G (...)
  • 53 See Pohl 2004: 83-84; Mastrocinque 2008: 204. Nergal and the Sibitti: RlA 9: 221. For groups of dei (...)
  • 54 Pohl 2004: 85, 88, 92-93 (“Es kann jedoch nicht von einem Sandan als hethitisch-luwischen Pendant z (...)

19One possibility that immediately arises is that the iconography of Nergal of Tarsus is in some way connected with the Hellenistic iconography of Sandas (assuming he is indeed the deity of the Sandon-Monument). Perhaps Sandas was reshaped in this period on the model of Nergal of Tarsus. Some scholars have gone further and suggested that Nergal of Tarsus is a translation of the local Sandas, who there is every reason to assume was already worshipped in the region in some form in the 5th century BC.52 This makes sense in so far as Nergal has a similar divine personality to Late Bronze Age Santa(s), who is accompanied by the Innarawantes/Annarummenzi deities, just as Nergal, likewise a god of plague and war, is accompanied by the Sibitti.53 Not all scholars have accepted the Nergal-Sandas equivalence, however; Daniela Pohl, in particular, has urged caution, pointing to differences between the iconographies of the two deities and the gap of two centuries that separates the Nergal-coins from the first attested representations of the Sandon-Monument.54

  • 55 See Stephanos of Byzantium s. v. Ταρσός. Chuvin 1981: 314 identifies him with the well-known Tarhun (...)
  • 56 Chuvin 1981. So Lebrun 1987b: 247 equates Sandas with Herakles, Nergal and Melqart, but not with Ba (...)
  • 57 Casabonne 2002: 31; for Melqart, see below p. 88. Against that, it should be remembered that in the (...)

20In fact, even more complex networks of divine translation have been reconstructed for Tarsus 5th-4th century BC. Another deity attested on coins from the period of the Satraps (early 4th century BC) is Ba’altars (“Baal of Tarsus”), who could be a local form of the Luwian Tarhunt and perhaps the same as the deity the Erastosthenes (3rd century BC) called “Zeus Tersios”.55 Some scholars see Ba’altars as the chief deity at Tarsus during the period of the Persian period, but speculate that he subsequently lost this status, allowing Sandas (who may already have become identified with Nergal or Heracles) to take over the dominant position.56 On the other hand, Olivier Casabonne has suggested that Sandas/Nergal and Ba’altars were identified, and that this Tarsian deity was also regarded as a translation of Phoenician Melqart of Tyre. On that hypothesis the deity had no less than seven allomorphs: Baal, Tarhunt, Zeus, Sandas, Nergal, Melqart and Heracles. 57

The Identification with Heracles: when, where, how?

Heracles as a translatable god

  • 58 Greek writers have six or seven Heracleses: Gruppe 1918: 1109-1110.
  • 59 See Kowalzig 2007: 141-142.
  • 60 Heracles’ Twelve Labours resemble the exploits of Ninurta as described in a Sumerian poem: see van (...)
  • 61 Paus. 8.31.3 = PEG 2.1.351; Hubbard 2007.
  • 62 Lloyd 1975-88: 2.43 thinks that the Twelve means the Egyptian Ennead, and that Heracles is being id (...)
  • 63 West 1983: 192-194; PEG 2.1.76, 79 = Damascius, De Princ.123 (3.161-2 Westerink).

21In the second section I shall turn to the question about why Sandas was identified with Heracles. To begin with, we ought to bear mind that the Greeks recognised several figures with that name.58 The most famous was Heracles the hero of Thebes who performed the famous Twelve Labours and, uniquely for a mortal, underwent apotheosis after his immolation on Mt. Oeta. He is first attested in the works of the poets Homer and Hesiod, i.e. around 700 BC, and was worshipped throughout the Greek world (i.e. his status was “panhellenic”), though he was specially associated with parts of Greece that were identified as Dorian (e.g. Sparta).59 It has long been suspected that the mythology and iconography of Heracles’s Labours was to some extent shaped by Near Eastern models, especially as regards the god Ninurta.60 There was also a second mortal Heracles, one of the so-called “Idaean Dactyls” or craftsmen heroes, associated with Crete and Olympia.61 The third Heracles was a primordial god, referred to by Herodotus in his discussion of Egyptian religion (Hist. 2.44-5), where he claims that Heracles is the name of one of the original Twelve Egyptian gods,62 who is in his view the same as Melqart of Tyre and Heracles of Thasos. According to sources from the Roman period the esoteric branch of Greek religion known as Orphism also knew of a divine Heracles, identified with the primordial deity Time (Kronos); the reason for that identification, paradoxically, may have been that Heracles’ performance of the Twelve Labours was imagined as the course of the sun through the twelve divisions of the sky.63

  • 64 Robert 1963: 499-500: Heracles “recouvre le plus souvent en Asie-Mineure, et ailleurs en dehors du (...)
  • 65 See Malkin 2011: 119-141.
  • 66 On Shu above; for others von Lieven 2016.
  • 67 See below n.84.
  • 68 Deleman 1999: 5-38.
  • 69 See Robert cited above; Bonnet 1992: 184-189.
  • 70 Possibly also Indra: Dahquist 1962. He may also have been identified with Vajrapani, one of the gua (...)
  • 71 See Bonnet 1992: 167-172.
  • 72 Doubted by Bonnet 1988: 400-404.
  • 73 For the evidence, see Winiarczyk 2000.
  • 74 Bonnet 1988: 104-112; the key evidence is the ritual term “egersis” (awakening), attested in Joseph (...)

22“Heracles” often appears as a translation of foreign deities.64 The best attested example is Melqart of Tyre, now believed to have been identified with Heracles since the 6th century BC, when Greeks and Phoenicians were competing to set up colonies throughout the Mediterranean.65 He was also identified with various Egyptian deities66, with Nergal in Palmyra;67 with the rider-god Kakasbos in Lycia;68 with Verethragna in Hellenistic Nimrud Dağ and elsewhere, and with the related Vahagn in Armenia.69 In the 3rd century BC Megasthenes identified Heracles with one of the chief gods of India, most likely Krishna.70 One factor in some of these cases may have been the impact of Alexander the Great, who may have stimulated interest in Heracles since the Macedonian royal family was believed to be descended from him.71 However, this cannot account for the identification with Melqart, the grounds for which are hard to determine since we know so little about his divine personality and mythology, which may for all we know have included a cycle of labours like those of the hero Heracles.72 Another point of connection may have been a pyre-ritual: Heracles underwent a fiery self-immolation on Mt Oeta in myth and perhaps in ritual as well,73 and Melqart was associated with a ritual called “awakening” (“egersis”), one aspect of which may have been a pyre-ritual.74 Heracles’ ability to triumph over death is also seen in the myth of his Twelfth Labour, visiting the Underworld to retrieve the chthonic dog Cerberus.

Sandas and Heracles

  • 75 The Agathias fragment (Appendix #7) may go back to Berossos; Jacoby in fact classes it as a fragmen (...)
  • 76 Chuvin 1981: 319, e.g. SNG France 2, 235 (wrestling Nemean lion).
  • 77 Goldman 1949: 152. Other cities in the region probably altered their foundation stories at the same (...)
  • 78 Chuvin 1981: 325 n. 61.
  • 79 Chuvin 1981: 309 n. 13; cf. Kraay 1976: 283.

23The equation of Sandas with Heracles is not certainly attested before the Roman period,75 but it is likely to be older than that, especially since Heracles is already found on coins from Tarsus in the 4th century BC.76 Goldman’s view was that he did not reach Tarsus until Alexander the Great passed through in 333 BC.77 Again, Chuvin suggested that Heracles might have come in with the Persian satrap Pharnabazus,78 who he believed struck coins with the figure of the successful conqueror Heracles (modeled on types from Heraclea Pontica and Syracuse)79 at Tarsus before his campaign in Egypt in the 370s BC. Thus, the Persian Empire could have been a catalyst for the diffusion and syncretism of religious ideas.

  • 80 Dinçol et al. 2015.

24But the identification could be much older than this. A terminus post quem would be when Greeks first get to Cilicia. Recently the possibility has emerged that the kingdom of Hiyawa, which included Tarsus, and which is now attested in the 10th century,80 might be a late version of Ahhiyawa. If the Submycenaeans reached Cilicia, they might perhaps have linked indigenous Santa(s) to Heracles. A problem with that hypothesis, however, is that Heracles is not thus far attested in Linear B texts.

  • 81 Tiglath-Pilesar II, Sargon II and Esarhaddon are said in Assyrian records to have encountered Ionia (...)
  • 82 Bing 1971 suggested that it might nevertheless have been colonized Lindos on Rhodes, as Soloi is su (...)
  • 83 Notice also that the equation between the Anatolian Malia/Maliya and the Greek Athene, which we fin (...)
  • 84 Mastrocinque 2007 has recently suggested that the key element in the translation of Sandas as Herac (...)

25Heracles was certainly in the Greek pantheon by 700 BC, which is around when Sennacherib defeated Greeks in Cilicia according to Berossos (see above).81 Though Tarsus is never said to have been a Greek colony,82 other cities in Cilicia are, for example Soloi which is supposed to have been colonized from Rhodes and which could possibly have been the site of the first Greek encounter with Sandas and the earliest equation with Heracles. Heracles was an important deity for the Rhodians whose island was said to have been founded by his son Tlepolemus.83 He would thus have seemed a good fit for the warrior god Sandas of Tarsus, whether or not a pyre ritual of Sandas existed at this time.84

  • 85 See Lebrun 1987a. Yakubovich 2015 has recently suggested that some Phoenician texts from this perio (...)
  • 86 See Karatepe inscription 38-44 where Tarhunt is equated with Baal and Runtiya is equated with “Resh (...)
  • 87 Casabonne 2002: 31 believes that Melqart, the “Baal of Tyre” was the same as the Baal of Tarsus, wh (...)

26Another possibility is that the catalyst for the equation between Heracles and Sandas was a rapprochement that had already been made between him and another deity. One obvious candidate is Melqart of Tyre, discussed above. If it was known in Cilicia that Tyre had equated its chief deity with Heracles, that might have motivated the Cilicians to do the same, particularly if Melqart and Sandas were at some point identified. If there was already a similar pyre-ritual at Tarsus, that might be a factor as well. Knowledge of the religion of Tyre would have been facilitated by the presence of Phoenicians in Cilicia, attested from the 8th century,85 and the Karatepe bilingual already equates Anatolian and Phoenician deities,86 though Melqart is not among them. He is, however, represented on some coins of Tarsus from the late 5th century BC, and some think Melqart was another equivalent of Sandas.87

  • 88 For the important evidence of an altar from Palmyra (157 AD), see Gawlikowski 2000. For earlier wor (...)
  • 89 Gawlikowski 2000 suggests that the common feature was that Nergal was associated with a dog (cf. “N (...)
  • 90 See Pohl 2004: 83.
  • 91 See Haas 1989: 28-29.
  • 92 For Nergal in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, see von Weiher 1971: 99-100. For the possibility of Neo-Baby (...)
  • 93 Lipinski 1995: 242 also suggests an established equation between Nergal and Heracles, pointing to r (...)

27Influence of this sort from Phoenicia in the 6th century BC thus seems a plausible hypothesis based on what we know, but we must be aware how limited our knowledge is. Yet another possibility is that some part was played by Nergal, who we saw earlier appears on Tarsian coins, with iconography that has suggested to some that he was related to Sandas. Nergal rarely intrudes into Greco-Roman religion, but he is known to have been worshipped in Hellenistic and Roman Syria – in Palmyra and Hatra, and it may be significant that there he seems to have been identified with Heracles.88 It has been suggested that the equation would have to do with the fact that Nergal, like Heracles, conquers death,89 or that both are warrior-gods,90 or in particular that both, like Marduk and Sandas as well, are archers.91 That equation is usually seen as late, but it is not impossible that it had earlier roots, established perhaps on the fringes of the Assyrian Empire in the 8th or 7th century BC, or in the Neo-Babylonian period.92 Thus, Nergal could already have been identified with Heracles before he was introduced into Tarsus, and this identification could have been the catalyst for the secondary equation between Heracles and Sandas.93

  • 94 Schretter 1974: 170 with 235 n. 56, suggesting that the equation between Nergal and Heracles had al (...)
  • 95 Cf. Wiggermann, RlA 9: 215-216 and Dalley 1987: 64.
  • 96 Dalley 1987: 65. It also possible that the equation been Melqart and Heracles is a secondary develo (...)

28This last model gains an extra dimension if we consider the possibility that the relationship between Nergal and Heracles was not merely an ordinary case of translation. It has in fact been suggested that Heracles originated as a form of Nergal, and that the name “Heracles” (for which there is no convincing etymology in Greek) is a garbled form of one of Nergal’s alternative names. The name in question is Erragal, i.e. “great Erra” (Erra-gal),94 Erra being a semitic deity of war, plague and death with which Nergal had at an earlier point been identified.95 For most of the Greeks, at least from about 700 BC, Heracles was a distinctively Greek deity, but it may be that before that, and afterwards in parts of the Ancient Near East, he was simply “the non-semitic pronunciation of Nergal”.96

29To conclude, we have evidence that at different times Santa(s)/Sandas was identified with two foreign deities: Babylonian Marduk in the Late Bronze Age (and perhaps the Iron Age as well, if Dalley is right); and Greek Heracles, at least in the Roman period, but more likely from the mid-fifth century BC, if not earlier.

30Two further identifications are possible: first, it has been suggested that “Nergal of Tarsus” was an Aramaic interpretation of Sandas. That might explain why the Hellenistic iconography of Sandas shows Assyrian influence (unless it is an echo of the ancient identification with Marduk). Secondly, the hypothesis of an early identification with Phoenician Melqart could account for the pyre-ritual which Sandas and Melqart may share and also provide an explanation for why Heracles is identified with Sandas.

  • 97 So, Pohl 2004: 145 says that with respect to Heracles Sandas “blieb immer ein ‘inkommensurabler’ Go (...)

31Ideally, we would be able to determine what identification amounted to in each of these cases: whether it was merely a matter of superficial and convenient “translatability”, or a deep, syncretic relationship involving some decree of merging of divine personalities. The only case we know very much about it that of Sandas and Heracles (although we are not well-informed about even this in what may have been its earliest stages), and here we can say that the Greco-Roman sources show no sign of syncretism and give the impression that Heracles is just a convenient Greco-Roman translation for an oriental deity who retains at all points an independent identity and schema.97

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Annexes

Appendix: Greek and Latin references

#1

The 6th century AD writer John the Lydian (De mag. 64; Bandy 1983: 232-235), quoting apparently Suetonius (1st-2nd centuries AD) and Apuleius (2nd century AD), mentioned an aetiology of the theonym Sandon applied to Heracles: it came about because Omphale, the mythological queen of Lydia, dressed him in a robe called a sandux. This suggests that the equation Heracles = Sandon was associated with Lydia (cf. the evidence for Lydian Sandas above). Malis (cf. the goddess Malia/Maliya) was said by the historian Hellanikos to be a slave of Omphale.98

#2

The entry for Adana in the lexicon of Stephanus of Byzantium states that Adana was founded by Adanos and (the river) Saros, and then gives a genealogy: έστι δέ ο Άδανος Γη̃ς κα Ουρανου̃ παις, κα Οστασος κα Σάνδης κα Κρόνος κα Ρέα κα Ιαπετòς κα Ολυμβρος “Adanos is son of Earth and Heaven, along with Ostasos, Sandes, Kronos, Rhea, Iapetos and Olumbros”. Three of the children (Kronos, Rhea, Iapetos) are Hesiodic Titans.99 Three are there because of their Cilician connections: Adanos is the eponym Adana and a founder of it,100 Sandes is chief god of Tarsus, and perhaps its founder.101 Olymbros, whose name suggests the Cilician epithet of Zeus Olybris, may perhaps have be linked to a specific Cilician city as well.102 Ostasos remains mysterious, but it seems likely that he too is connected to Cilicia in some way.103 In this context, it seems virtually certain that Iapetos owes his presence here to interference with the Jewish tradition (Genesis 10.2-4) that Japeth, the son of Noah and his descendants colonised Anatolia;104 according to Josephus, Tarsus was named after one of Japeth’s grandsons Tharsos (Tarshish).105 It is hard to say how old this genealogy is, but it might perhaps go back to the above-mentioned Athenodorus, whom Stephanus of Byzantium elsewhere quotes for local mythology about Tarsus: that Anchiale, daughter of Iapetus, founded Anchiale, the port of Tarsus, that her son was Cydnus, eponym of the river, and that the son of Cydnus was Parthenius, after whom Tarsus was first called Parthenia.106

#3

Ammianus Marcellinus (4th century AD) records that Tarsus was founded either by Perseus or by a certain Sandan, a “rich man” (“vir opulentus”), said in the manuscripts to come “ex aithio” or “ex aichio”, both meaningless. Many suggestions have been made about how to restore this, the most popular being “ex Aithiopia”.107 This could be a euhemeristic version of an original foundation by Sandas.

#4

According to the Library attributed to Ps. Apollodorus (1st-2nd centuries AD), Celenderis in Cilicia was founded by Sandokos of Syria. He is said to have married the Pharnace, daughter of Megassares, king of of Hyrie, and their son was Cinyras of Cyprus.108 Hyria (a dialectal variant of Hyrie) is one of the names applied by Stephanus of Byzantium to Seleukeia in Cilicia, appropriately close to Celenderis, and in any case the name may contain a resonance of the Late Bronze Age Ura.109 This too could be a garbled version of a foundation by Sandas.

#5

Eusebius (3rd century AD) in his Canons is now believed to have said that Heracles under name of Sandas was well known in Phoenicia, from where he was still called “Sandes” by Cappadocians and Cilicians.110

#6

The epic poet Nonnus of Panopolis (4th-5th centuries AD) in his Dionysiaca (34.1920) reports the identification of Sandes and Heracles at Tarsus, and playfully suggests a third identification with the dark Indian hero Morrheus/Morrhenos (… οθεν Κιλίκων ἐ νὶ γαίη/ Σάνδης ̔Hρακλέης κικλήσκεται εἰ σέτι Μορρεύς). Could the implication be that Morrheus was a (-n otherwise unattested) local cult title of Sandas at Tarsus?111

#7

The historian Agathias (6th century AD) says that the present religion of the Persians was introduced by Zoroaster, but in ancient times they worshipped the same gods as the Greeks, though they used different names, e.g. Belos for Zeus, Sandes for Heracles and Anaitis for Aphrodite (Hist. 2.24.8). This seems to be evidence that at least in time of Agathias the cult of Sandes was established in some area of the Persian (i.e. Sassanian) Empire.112 Agathias attributes this information to Berossos (FGr Hist 680 F12) and two otherwise unknown historians Athenokles and Simakos.113

#8

The Life and Miracles of St. Thecla (5th century AD) mentions the town of Damalis and “Sandas-Heracles the son of Amphitryon” (Mir.30). It seems likely that a real place is intended, and the reference is usually taken to be Dalisandos/Dalisanda in Isauria, which sounds like Damali-Sanda, but it could just as easily be somewhere else (Tarsus?).114 In any case, prima facie this indicates that Sandas was worshipped somewhere alongside a goddess Damalis, and in fact this is the only clear evidence for a paredros of Sandas.115 Damalis (“the Calf”) is an otherwise unattested theonym which in a Christian context perhaps suggests the two sacred golden calves (damaleis) to which the Israelites sacrificed under Jeroboam.116

Notes

1 See e.g., Lebrun 1987b.

2 The closest comparandum is Kubaba of Carchemish, though in that case the Greco-Roman reception is less clear because the precise relationship between Kubaba and Cybele remains unknown: see Hutter this volume. Another comparable case is Maliya, who survives in epichoric texts of Lycia, apparently equated with Greek Athene, although it is unclear to what extent Greco-Roman writers were aware of the name Maliya/Malia. Watkins 2007: 122-125 argues that 2nd millennium and 1st millennium goddesses were connected in name only. For Maliya see also Neumann 1967: 36; Lebrun 1982: 124; Keen 1998: 202-204 and Lebrun/ Raimond 2015: 93.

3 “Sandes” is found in Nonnus, Dion.34.192, Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. ’Άδανα and the Byzantine historian Agathias (Appendix #6, #2, #7). Sandon occurs as a theonym only in John the Lydian (Appendix #1); more commonly it is an anthroponym. Less certain is Sandan, which occurs only as the name of the founder of Tarsus in Ammianus Marcellinus (Appendix #3) it may also appear as a man’s name in a Roman epitaph from Diokaisareia: see SEG 53: 1727. Sandan never seems to occur as the name of the god, despite being so used by J. G. Frazer (see below p. 85) and other scholars. Finally, note that West 1971: 51-52 posited that the Greek theonym Zas/Zantos, used by the 6th century theologian and philosopher Pherecydes of Syros, may have been based on Luwian Santa(s).

4 For the onomastics, see below p. 84.

5 Armenia: Greppin 1978; Minoan Crete: see below n. 22; India: Hrozný 1941: 228; Carruba 2000: 61-63.

6 Christianity: Böhlig 1913; Schoeps 1959: 165, Hengel 1997: 167; cf. Nock 1961: 582-583.

7 See, for example, Laroche’s study of the etymology of the Greek Word for ivory (1965), subsequently vindicated by West 1992.

8 See Smith 2008.

9 The bibliography is large: for the second millennium see, besides Laroche 1973, Kammenhuber 1990, Dalley 1999, Polvani 2002, Melchert 2002, Beckman in RlA 12: 6; and for the Greco-Roman period see Höfer 1909-15, Böhlig 1913, Philipp 1923, Salvatori 1975, Pohl 2004 and Mastrocinque 2007.

10 Laroche 1966: 156-157; Polvani 2002: 646 (Siege of Uršu CTH 7).

11 KUB 54.24; Polvani 2002: 646.

12 Popko 1987; Haas 1994: 467.

13 Beckman in RlA 12: 6; Polvani 2002: 645-646. Another text with Luwian content in which he appears is KUB 35.145, on which see Bachvarova 2013: 150.

14 Polvani 2002: 647 and 652. Laroche 1973: 111 and n. 2 suggested the name meant “angry”; contra Kammenhuber 1990: 191-192. See HEG Š: 839-841.

15 KUB 38.10 iii 9-13. Mastrocinque 2007: 202-203 suggests that a later resonance of the name Iyaya can be found in a Roman gem which has an image resembling the Hellenistic representation of Sandas (see below) and the Greek inscription YOYO (i.e. υουο), but that seems unlikely on philological grounds.

16 In theory, Marduk might have become known when Mursili I sacked Babylon; the “Marduk Prophecy” (see Borger 1971; Foster 2005: 388-391) implies that Marduk’s statue was carried off to Hatti, though that is not confirmed by any Hittite source: see RlA 8: 414 sub Mursili I.

17 Polvani 2002. Also one of Maštigga’s rituals: see Miller 2004: 151; Smith 2008.

18 Laroche 1973: 110-111; Polvani 2002: 652.

19 CHLI 1.2, 558-9 (X.3); Hawkins 1981: 174, no 31b.

20 CHLI 1.2, 488 (X.21), line § 6. Notice also ERKILET 1 (CHLI 1.2: 494) which refers to the deity ma-ru-ti-ka-sa, generally interpreted as Marduk, who may still be identified with Santa(s)/Sandas.

21 4a in Gusmani 1964-86; see Melchert 2002. For these deities see also Archi 2010: 25.

22 See Melchert 2002. The combination of Santi (Santa(s)) and Kapupi (Kubaba?) may also occur in an incantation in the language of the Keftiu (usually thought to be Minoan) in the Egyptian London Medical Papyrus: incantation 20 in Leitz 1999: 63; see Goedicke 1984: 102; earlier Bossert 1932; Billigmeier 1981; Harmatta 1985-88: 259-261. Contra Kyriakidis 2002: 216 n. 23.

23 There is an instance in the ritual of Allī of Arzawa, and in KUB 54.65 ii 11, which is now supposed to be from Zarpiya’s ritual, we find the formula “the Marwainzi deities of Iyarri” (ŠA dIyarri DINGIRMEŠ Marwainzi). The Markuwaya-deities, who seem to be a Hittite equivalent of the Marwainzi- deities, are found twice in Arzawa rituals, associated with Iyarri (Bawanypeck 2005: 260) and the DLAMMA of the kurša (KUB 7.38; Bawanypeck 2005: 122).

24 Goetze 1939: no 7.5; Pruzsinszky in PNAE 3.1: 1087-1088, mentions also another Sandapi who was a vegetable gardener under Sargon II.

25 cf. Melchert 2013: 36; RlA s.v.

26 Pruzsinszky in PNAE 3:1: 1087-1088; ead. in RlA; for the meaning of the name see Starke 1990: 155-157; Melchert 2013: 38.

27 Dalley 1999; endorsed by Haider 2006.

28 The source is the “Sin of Sargon” text: Livingstone 1989: 77-79.

29 Dalley 1999: 73-74; Jacoby 680 F7 (IIIC, 386, 23).

30 She points to images of Assyrian gods standing on a horned creature such as one of the rock-inscriptions from Maltai in North Iraq (Dalley 1999: 74-75); she sees the horned creature as Marduk’s red dragon, the mushussu. Notice that according to another Armenian version of Eusebius which may go back to the historian Abydenos (2nd or 3rd century AD) and then to Berossos (Jacoby 685 F5), Sennecherib built a temple “of the Athenians” in Tarsus. Bing 1971 suggests that the phrase “temple of the Athenians” here reflects the involvement of Lindians from Rhodes, whose main deity was Athene. Other historians have doubted the text here (see Jacoby 3C: 44, apparatus). Burstein 1978: 24 plausibly emends “temple of Athenians” to “temple of Sandes who is Heracles”; Dalley 1999: 73 n. 2 calls this suggestion “gratuitous”.

31 Melchert 2002 has argued for a Lycian reflex, suggesting that hatahe in the Xanthos stele might reflect a Lycianized form of the theonym. Cau 2003 is cautious, but cf. Watkins 2007: 122-123.

32 LGPN 5B: 377-378.

33 Apollodorus, Library 3.14.3 (Appendix #4). A deity called Sanerges seems to have been worshipped in the Bosporan Kingdom in the late 4th century BC along with a goddess called Astara (Astarte?), and it has been suggested that Sanerges might be related to Santa(s), but that does not seem particularly likely. For references see Ustinova 1999: 51-53.

34 See Houwink ten Cate 1961: 136-137; Jasink 1991. Examples are: Sandazamis: Olba (1BC). Craig Melchert, per litteras, suggests to me that the second element is the participle of Luwian (LITUUS)aza- ‘to favor, love’, which would mean ‘loved by Santa(s)’. In Melchert’s view, compound theonyms of this sort were influenced by Greek (see Melchert 2013: 48). Sandaios, apparently, in the dialogue epigram from Kanytelis: SGO 19/10/01; Sandas: territory of Elaioussa-Sebaste (imperial); Sandemias SEG 48 1764: Hamaxia (1BC-AD); this looks like the same name as Sa(n)tamuwa which Laroche 1966: 156, no 1099 read in the stele from Cekke rev. 7, but Hawkins, CHLI 1.1: 146, reads this as Santa(m)us(?); Sandes: Hamaxia (1BC-2AD) (multiple), Sivasti, Zenopolis; Lycaonia; Sandios: Limyra; Sandogenes: Anazarbos (524 AD); Sandos: Olba (2nd AD); Sandon: Anazarbos (1-2 AD); Tarsus (1 AD); Hamaxia (1 BC-1 AD); Olba (2-3 AD); Seleukeia (imp); Sivasti (imp); also Tynna SEG 50 1367.

35 See Grimal 1945-46. Sandon may also have been the name of a scholar on the Orphic Poems (West 1983: 176-177).

36 Apollo of the Trident is the subject of a study by Chuvin 1981, who argues that this is an ancient form of Apollo at Tarsus, going right back to the 5th century BC, but in the time of Dio soon to be supplanted by Argive Apollo.

37 Or. 33.47. Heracles is also designated “Founder” on coins: see Chuvin 1981: 319 and SNG France 2, 1546 and 1547. Ammianus Marcellinus attributed the foundation of Tarsus to a human Sandan (Appendix #3) and Apollodorus says that Celenderis was founded by Sandokos (Appendix #4).

38 Lucian, Syrian Goddess 49 with Lightfoot 2003: 503-504; Nilsson 1923.

39 For this, see PW s.v. Oeta 2298 and Jones 1984. Not all scholars have accepted the idea of a self-immolating Heracles at Tarsus: Nock 1961: 583 n. 1, and also by Laroche 1973. However, they were not aware of Jones 1984.

40 Amores 1, 54.

41 See Goldman 1950-63: 1.337-338 and Goldman 1940.

42 An early example is SNG Paris 1327 (= 1154) (2nd century BC). See Pohl 2004: 74-75; for coins from the Roman period, see Ehling 2004a: 141.

43 On one coin, the monument has ΣΑΝ written next to it, which might perhaps be an abbreviation for “Sandas/don” or the name of a magistrate incorporating the theonym. The coin is SNG Switzerland 1 n. 938 (NB the description seems to belong to the next coin). Augé 1994: 664 is sceptical. See also Seyrig 1939: 40.

44 Pohl 2004: 77; Goldman 1940: 550; Dalley 1999: 74-75 suggests a resemblance to Marduk’s mushussu-dragon, but see Pohl.

45 See Pohl 2004: 80, who sees the bow-case as a clear Assyrian trait, although the polos head-gear he wears looks rather Anatolian (Pohl 2004: 77-78), and the axe could be either (Pohl 2004: 79-80). For his occasional nudity (Pohl 2004: 79) the best parallels are Greek.

46 Frazer 1927: 126-127; for earlier reference see Cook 1914-40: I 600 n. 7; cf. Bonnet 1988: 154.

47 Cook 1914-40: I 600-603; Goldman 1940; Seyrig 1959: 48.

48 Ehling 2004a: 142.

49 Jenkins 1972 and Jenkins 1973; Mildenberg 1973; Chuvin 1981: 321, n. 48. See Pohl 2004: 84-85 for a clear discussion of the similarities and differences.

50 The one with the double axe is Chuvin type 3, Mildenberg no 5.

51 For Nergal, Lipinski 1995: 243-244. Schwartz 2005 had argued that the Persian theonym Khshathrapati in the Xanthos Trilingual is a calque of Nergal, intended there apparently as an equivalent to Apollo.

52 Chuvin 1981 suggests that Nergal is the Aramaic interpretatio of Sandas, just as Hercules was the Greek interpretation; see further Lebrun 1987a: 31-32, Lebrun 1987b: 247, 258; Casabonne 2002: 322.

53 See Pohl 2004: 83-84; Mastrocinque 2008: 204. Nergal and the Sibitti: RlA 9: 221. For groups of deities accompanying Santa(s), see above p. 82 In Hittite texts, Nergal is generally believed to be the equivalent of the deity written U.GUR, whose primary Hittite reading is Šulinkatte or Zilipuri; for the latter see Pecchioli-Daddi 2004. U.GUR occurs next to Santa(s) in a few texts, e.g. KUB 35.145: 12; see Polvani 2002: 649, and Lebrun 1987a: 31-32 suggests that this equation might already have existed in Late Bronze Age since U.GUR sometimes has the phonetic complement -a; but see Kammenhuber 1990: 192.

54 Pohl 2004: 85, 88, 92-93 (“Es kann jedoch nicht von einem Sandan als hethitisch-luwischen Pendant zum sumerisch-babylonischen Nergal gesprochen werden”); see also Burkert 1985: 432 n. 21 (“Nergal in Tarsos … does not seem to be identical to Sandon”).

55 See Stephanos of Byzantium s. v. Ταρσός. Chuvin 1981: 314 identifies him with the well-known Tarhunt of Ivriz, and he may also perhaps continue the Bronze Age Storm-god: Lebrun 2001: 92-93.

56 Chuvin 1981. So Lebrun 1987b: 247 equates Sandas with Herakles, Nergal and Melqart, but not with Ba’altars.

57 Casabonne 2002: 31; for Melqart, see below p. 88. Against that, it should be remembered that in the later Greek sources (which could reflect local Tarsian religious knowledge that goes back to the 5th century), Sandas is a Titan, which would put him the generation before Zeus (i.e. Ba’altars).

58 Greek writers have six or seven Heracleses: Gruppe 1918: 1109-1110.

59 See Kowalzig 2007: 141-142.

60 Heracles’ Twelve Labours resemble the exploits of Ninurta as described in a Sumerian poem: see van Dijk 1983: 1.17-18; note in particular the parallel between the many-headed Hydra of Lerna slain by Herakles and the musmahhu or seven-headed snake slain by Ninurta (Childs 2003: 63-64; West 1997: 461). The parallel between Heracles and Ninurta was already made by Levy 1934: 46. See futher on Nergal below.

61 Paus. 8.31.3 = PEG 2.1.351; Hubbard 2007.

62 Lloyd 1975-88: 2.43 thinks that the Twelve means the Egyptian Ennead, and that Heracles is being identified with the Egyptian deity Shu.

63 West 1983: 192-194; PEG 2.1.76, 79 = Damascius, De Princ.123 (3.161-2 Westerink).

64 Robert 1963: 499-500: Heracles “recouvre le plus souvent en Asie-Mineure, et ailleurs en dehors du monde grec classique … un dieu indigène auquel le rattachait l’un ou l’autre de ses attributs”; see also Gruppe 1918: 1103 and Bonnet 1992.

65 See Malkin 2011: 119-141.

66 On Shu above; for others von Lieven 2016.

67 See below n.84.

68 Deleman 1999: 5-38.

69 See Robert cited above; Bonnet 1992: 184-189.

70 Possibly also Indra: Dahquist 1962. He may also have been identified with Vajrapani, one of the guardians of the Buddha (Flood 1989).

71 See Bonnet 1992: 167-172.

72 Doubted by Bonnet 1988: 400-404.

73 For the evidence, see Winiarczyk 2000.

74 Bonnet 1988: 104-112; the key evidence is the ritual term “egersis” (awakening), attested in Josephus (AJ 8.5.3; c. Apion 1.117-119). The evidence for burning on a pyre is late and indirect: Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions 10.24; Nonnus, Dion. 40.394-398 (cf. Bonnet 1988: 67, 73), but Bonnet argues that there is no alternative but to see the egersis as in some way involving fire.

75 The Agathias fragment (Appendix #7) may go back to Berossos; Jacoby in fact classes it as a fragment of Berossos (680 F12). See, however, Pohl 2004: 89.

76 Chuvin 1981: 319, e.g. SNG France 2, 235 (wrestling Nemean lion).

77 Goldman 1949: 152. Other cities in the region probably altered their foundation stories at the same time. For Aspendos and Alcmaion, see Rutherford 2013: 275. Could the tradition about Perseus have arisen at the same time?

78 Chuvin 1981: 325 n. 61.

79 Chuvin 1981: 309 n. 13; cf. Kraay 1976: 283.

80 Dinçol et al. 2015.

81 Tiglath-Pilesar II, Sargon II and Esarhaddon are said in Assyrian records to have encountered Ionians; Sargon claimed to have defeated them. For references, see Brinkmann 1989: 54-57 and Haubold 2013: 100-101.

82 Bing 1971 suggested that it might nevertheless have been colonized Lindos on Rhodes, as Soloi is supposed to have been.

83 Notice also that the equation between the Anatolian Malia/Maliya and the Greek Athene, which we find in Lycia from the late 5th century, is attested from the Rhodian cities of Rhodiapolis and Phaselis, and may well reflect the central importance of the goddess Athene at Lindos on Rhodes: see Keen 1998: 203. Bing 1971 suggested that Eusebius-Abydenos’ “temple of the Athenians” might be a temple of Athene founded by Rhodes (see above, n. 30)

84 Mastrocinque 2007 has recently suggested that the key element in the translation of Sandas as Heracles was the animal Sandas stands on, which the Greeks interpreted as the Chimaera, so that they understood the deity as Bellerophon; but that does not seem to explain the identification with Heracles, who was not associated with the Chimaera.

85 See Lebrun 1987a. Yakubovich 2015 has recently suggested that some Phoenician texts from this period might in fact have been written by Greeks. Notice also Eusebius’s statement (possibly deriving from Berossos) that one of the areas where Sandas was known as Heracles was Phoenicia (see Appendix #5).

86 See Karatepe inscription 38-44 where Tarhunt is equated with Baal and Runtiya is equated with “Reshep of the Goats”, “presumably as a god of wild beasts” (Payne 2012: 41).

87 Casabonne 2002: 31 believes that Melqart, the “Baal of Tyre” was the same as the Baal of Tarsus, who in his view was also Sandas; Lebrun 1987b: 247 equates Melqart with Sandas, but not with Ba’altars (so Ehling 2004a: 140). Chuvin 1981: 317 thinks that in the mentality of Tarsian numismatics Melqart was a separate deity, equated with an unknown local deity who was also equated with Greek Bellerophon, and distinct from both the “Baal of Tarsus” and Sandas.

88 For the important evidence of an altar from Palmyra (157 AD), see Gawlikowski 2000. For earlier work on Heracles and Nergal in Palmyra, see Seyrig 1944; for Hatra, al-Salihi 1971. Some scholars have been sceptical, including Kaizer 2000.

89 Gawlikowski 2000 suggests that the common feature was that Nergal was associated with a dog (cf. “Nergol the dog” at Hatra: al-Salihi 1971: 113-115), as Heracles was associated with Cerberus. Haider 2008: 196 says that both gods were deliverers and conquerors of death (NB “Nergal and Ereshkigal”). Wiggermann in RlA 9: 221: “In a way [Nergal] becomes a dying god”.

90 See Pohl 2004: 83.

91 See Haas 1989: 28-29.

92 For Nergal in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, see von Weiher 1971: 99-100. For the possibility of Neo-Babylonian influence see Haider 2006: 47 with n. 34.

93 Lipinski 1995: 242 also suggests an established equation between Nergal and Heracles, pointing to representations of Heracles from 5th century Lapethos on Cyprus.

94 Schretter 1974: 170 with 235 n. 56, suggesting that the equation between Nergal and Heracles had already been proposed in the 19th century; Dalley 1987: 65; Kingsley 1995: 395; supported now by L’Allier 2015; Burkert 1979: 82-83 and 179 n. 16; Donnay 1985. West 1997: 471 n. 101. Bonnet 1988: 413 n. 45 is sceptical. For the name, compare Burkert’s hypothesis (Burkert 1992: 75-79) that Azu-gal, the “great doctor” comes into Greek religion as Askl-epios. Another indication of Heracles’ Eastern origins is the resemblance been his Labours mentioned above, and Ninurta was related to Nergal.

95 Cf. Wiggermann, RlA 9: 215-216 and Dalley 1987: 64.

96 Dalley 1987: 65. It also possible that the equation been Melqart and Heracles is a secondary development from an earlier one between Nergal and Melqart, though no evidence for that seems to survive, despite Seyrig 1944: 70. See Dalley 1987: 65.

97 So, Pohl 2004: 145 says that with respect to Heracles Sandas “blieb immer ein ‘inkommensurabler’ Gott, dessen Wesen eben nicht ‘restlos’ in einem griechischen Gott aufging”.

98 FGrHist fr.112, 112a Fowler.

99 On this genealogy, see Ehling 2004c.

100 Adanos is represented on a coin from Adana (2nd century AD): see Weiss 1997 and Levante 1984: 81.

101 See n. 40. Sandes is possibly also a Titan in the late epic fragment studied by Meliado 2014.

102 Olumbros has been linked to Ellibra, known from KUB 20.52+ i 26 and to be identified with the town Illubra known from Assyrian texts (Laroche 1959: 295). Some have identified this with Byzantine Lampron, modern day Namrun north of Mersin: Houwink ten Cate 1961: 25-26; Goetze 1962: 512, n. 19; Laroche 1973: 112 n. 4. Forlanini 1988: 144 thinks of a position further West, Soli/Pompeiopolis or Viranşehir (followed by Trémouille 2001: 62). A Greek dedication from Rome links Zeus Olybris to “Anazarbos mother city of the nation of the Cilicians” (IGUR I.131, 2nd-3rd centuries AD). Von Domaszewski 1911 suggested that Olybrios was an ethnic deity for the Cilicians, specially associated with the region of Anazarbos; and Robert and Robert 1950: 68 suggested that Olumbros was founder of Anazarbos. The same deity is found in other inscriptions from Anazarbos: IK Anazarbos 44-47; and SEG 54.490 (an acclamation from Mt. Hemite). For other references to Zeus Olybris, see Isaac 1997: 127; Sayar 2004: 174-175.

103 Connected with the name of king Azatiwata of Karatepe at one point (see Barnett/Leveen/Moss 1948: 59), but that now seems unlikely.

104 So Barnett 1945: 101, n. 7. For parallels between Japeth and Iapetos, see Brown 1995: 82-83 and Louden 2013. West 1997: 289-290 is sceptical, but he does not consider the possibility that Iapetos was associated with Anatolia.

105 Genesis 10.4; Josephus, JA 1.127. Tarshish has often been regarded as the eponym of Tartessos, but some scholars believe he may have been linked to Tarsus: see van der Koij 1998: 44-45. Notice that according to the Armenian version of Eusebius, which purports to transmit Berossus, Esarhaddon, when he rebuilt Tarsus on the image of Babylon, gave it the name “Tharsin” (Jacoby 680 F7 (IIIC, 386, 24)). This could indicate that Berossos already connected the grandson of Noah with Tarsus.

106 FHG 3.485; von Arnim in PW 2045 is doubtful. The tradition that Tarsus (Tarsos) was so called because it was the first place that became dry (Greek terso) after the flood may be part of the same tradition. Since tarš- means “dry” in Hittite, it is not impossible that the same etymological connection was made in the Late Bronze Age: see Lebrun 2001: 91. Tischler 1987: 350 (cf. Lebrun 2001: 91, n. 18) observes that according to Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Ταρσός, the former name of Tarsus was Krania, from Greek kranion “skull”, and that “taršama/taršma” seems to be Luwian for skull (cf. also HEG T: 221-22). Ehling 2004b: 153-154 suggests that this explains the iconography of series of coins from Tarsus which depict a bovine skull.

107 Hist. 14.8.3. There is a good discussion of the text in De Jonge 1939: 59-60.

108 Library 3.14.3. According to Hesychius, Lex s.v. Κινύρας the parents of Cinyras are Pharnake and Apollo, who is thus an equivalent of Sandokos.

109 See Haider 1995: 106. The implication in Ps. Apollodorus that Hyrie is close to Kelenderis adds credibility to Stephanos’ statement that Hyria was a name of Seleukeia, something which has been called into question by some: see Casabonne 2005.

110 The text of Eusebius survives in an Armenian translation, in Jerome and in a fragment of Syncellus. These give the name as Desandas, Desanaus, and Disandan. Huxley 1982 rightly emends to Sandas. This renders obsolete Dostalova 1967’s identification of Desandas with Hesychius’ Dorsanes, for which Eggermont 1986 in any case has an alternative explanation. For Sandas in Cappadocia, cf. Robert 1963: 499-500 on Heracles in the town of Hanisa (supposedly the Greek form of Kanesh); Santa(s) had been worshipped in Sarissa in the Sivas province in the Late Bronze Age (see above).

111 Note that Morrheus’ name resembles the marwainzi-deities associated with Sandas; the singular marwaiza is also found in Allī’s ritual (Late Bronze Age). On Sandas in Nonnus see Dostálová 1967; Keydell 1944 and Lefteratou 2015 n. 37 (the last with bibliography).

112 See Cameron 1969-70: 83. It is possible the name of Persian Sandokes in Herodotus 7, 194 and 196 could reflect a Persian reception of the deity; see also Sandani in 1.71.

113 See, however, Pohl 2004: 89, who suggests that the information about Sandas may go back to Athenokles.

114 Dagron 1978: 371; Johnson 2006: 141. An indication of the location may be provided by a recently published epitaph for a woman called Damalis, dedicated by her husband Sandon, was recently published (1st-2nd centuries AD), now in the Museum at Ereğli; see French 2007: 96, no 38 = SEG 57.1697.

115 For Iyaya, the partner of Late Bronze Age Santa(s), see above p. 82 with n. 15. The tradition that Heracles was a slave of Omphale in Lydia and had a son Akeles by Malis, slave of Omphale (Hellanicus, FGrHist 4F112), may indicate that Heracles-Sandas was worshipped somewhere alongside Omphale or Malia (cf. Masson 1962: 129), but this is not certain.

116 1 Kings 12.28; Tobit 1.5. See Höfer 1909-15: 320-321 (note). Böhlig 1914 links this to 5th century coins that have Heracles on one side and a heffer on the other. The thesis, reported by Höfer, that “Damalis” is somehow related to the theonym Maliya/Malia seems unlikely.

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