Citation with stable link: Philip A. Harland, 'Eusebeians and Machimians in an alternative world: Theopompos on pious and war-like peoples (mid-fourth century BCE),' Ethnic Relations and Migration in the Ancient World, last modified March 30, 2024, https://philipharland.com/Blog/?p=18889.
Ancient authors: Theopompos of Chios (mid-fourth century BCE), FGrHist 115 F75c, as cited by Aelian (late second century CE), Historical Miscellany 3.18 (link to Greek; link to FGrHist).
Comments: Aelian summarizes a passage from Theopompos (probably a ninth book on marvels in On Philip) containing a tale of a meeting between king Midas of Phrygia and a Silenos (usually pictured as an old companion and foster-father of Dionysos). This tale imagines Midas receiving an education in geography and ethnography regarding an alternative world beyond the one consisting of Europe, Asia and Libya. The two peoples of that other world live in opposite ways. The one is pious and just and the other war-like and hostile. That world seems to be placed to the north as there is a tale of peoples from that world exploring our own Mediterranean world and encountering only the Hyperboreans (imaginary people beyond the north wind of our world) before turning back. There is also a tale about the Meropians, who neighbour the other two peoples (presumably between their world and our Mediterranean world), among whom a tree of youth is to be found.
Servius Danielis’ commentary on the Virgil’s Aenid (FGrHist 115 F75b) likewise refers to Theopompos’ story, adding that it comes from a book on Marvels and that, before the episode below, Midas’ shepherds captured Silenos while he was drunk.
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[Midas the Phrygian learns geographic and ethnographic details from the Silenos]
(1) Theopompos records a certain meeting between Midas the Phrygian and a Silenos. This Silenos was the child of a nymph, less illustrious by nature than a god, but superior to a man, since he was also immortal. Actually, there was a long conversation between them, and Silenos spoke to Midas on the following themes:
[Another mainland beyond Europe, Asia, and Libya]
(2) Europe, Asia, and Libya are islands, which Ocean flows around in a circle, but only one mainland exists outside of this world. He described it as boundless in size, nurturing other animals that are large. People are twice the size of people here, and their life-span is not the same as ours, but also twice as long. (3) There are many large cities and particular ways of life and their laws have been drawn up and set in a manner opposite to our customs.
[Eusebeians and their ideal and just customs]
(4) Theopompos said that there are two very large cities that are completely different from one another: one city is called Machimos (Warrior) and the other is called Eusebeia (Piety). So the Eusebeians live peacefully with substantial wealth. They harvest their produce from the land without plows or oxen, but they farm and sow with no work for themselves. Theopompos says that “they spend their lives healthy and without disease and they continue to the end of their own lives joyously and with pleasure. In this respect they are unquestionably just (dikaioi), so that even the gods do not think them unworthy to visit regularly.”
[Machimians and their war-like customs]
(5) Those of Machimos city are very war-like. They are born with weapons and are always making war. They subjugate their neighbours, and this one city controls a great many peoples (ethnē). There are no less than twenty million inhabitants. They sometimes die of an illness, but this is rare because they are often hit with stones or pieces of wood while engaged in war. They are invulnerable to iron. They have an abundance of gold and silver, so that gold is less valuable to them than iron is to us.
[Contact with Hyperboreans]
(6) Theopompos said that once upon a time they attempted to cross over to our islands, and they sailed across Ocean with ten million men until they reached the territory of the Hyperboreans [people beyond the north wind]. When they recognized that these people were considered by us to be the most blessed, they looked down upon what they were doing as base and lowly, and for this reason they did not think it was worthwhile going further.
[Meropians and the tree of youth]
(7) Theopompos added still another even more amazing thing. He said that a certain people called the Meropians (Meropas) lived in many large cities near them, and at the furthest point of their land is a place called No Return (Anostos), which is like a chasm covered neither by darkness nor light, but the air is stagnant and mixed with a foul reddish color. There are two rivers running around this place. The one is called Pleasure (Hedonē), the other Pain (Lypē), and beside each of them stands a plane-tree of enormous size. The trees along the riverbanks of Pain are such that they bear fruit that by nature, if someone tastes it, he cries to such an extent that he wastes away and mourns for the entire remainder of his life, and so dies. (8) And the other trees that grow on the river Pleasure produce fruit with the opposite effect. For the person who tastes the fruit obtains relief from any previous desires. Yet, if he desired something passionately, he also forgets about it. He becomes younger little by little and he receives back again the periods of his life that passed and have already gone by. For having discarded old age, he returns to his prime of life, then continues to his young adulthood, then he becomes a child, then an infant, and he is entirely exhausted. (9) Let us trust these stories, if the Chian is trustworthy in saying them. However, he seems to me someone who relates myths (mythologos) both here and elsewhere.
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Source of translation: Translation adapted by Harland from Jeffrey Henderson, Aelian: Historical Miscellany, LCL (Cambridge, MA: HUP, 1997).