In classical literature, we often stumble across unusual or amusing anecdotes. Sometimes, however, we find stories that are downright bizarre. For instance, in his Natural History 9.4.9-11, Pliny the Elder describes a bizarre assortment of otherworldly sightings of supernatural sea creatures, including mermaids, mermen, and gigantic sea monsters.
Pliny reports that an embassy was once sent to the Emperor Tiberius to inform him that, in a certain cave, numerous people had seen or heard a Triton playing with a conch.
He then proceeds to explain that the corpses of so many Nereids washed up on the French shores that the governor of Gaul once even wrote a letter to Emperor Augustus to inform him of it. Pliny claims that Nereids look exactly like they are shown in artwork, but states that they are completely covered from head to toe in fish scales.
Pliny mentions that a dying Nereid once washed ashore on the coast of Gaul and that the inhabitants of the coastal village heard her singing a song of mourning as she lay dying.
ABOVE: Marble sculpture of a Nereid riding on a sea-bull from the second century B.C.
Pliny also asserts that a merman with a human body was often spotted in the Gulf of Cadiz. This merman would often climb up onto the decks of ships in the middle of the night and whatever part of the ship he sat on would become so weighed down by him that it would instantly begin to sink. If he remained there for a long time, the ship would actually go under water.
ABOVE: Ancient Greek gold armband depicting the god Triton as a merman, dating to circa 200 B.C.
This is only the beginning of the bizarre anomalies recounted by Pliny; he also reports that, during the reign of Emperor Tiberius, the sea receded from the shore of an island off the coast of Gaul near Lugdunum, revealing the corpses of a horrifying menagerie of fantastical sea creatures, including sea-elephants and sea-rams, which resembled their land counterparts exactly, only they were covered all over in scales.
He tells us that Marcus Scaurus once exhibited in Rome the enormous skeleton of a terrific sea monster, which was over forty feet long and whose backbone was a foot and a half thick. He claimed that this monstrous skeleton had washed ashore near Joppa in the province of Judaea and claimed that it was none other than Ketos, the sea monster sent by Poseidon to devour the legendary Princess Andromeda before she was rescued by Perseus.
ABOVE: Perseus and Andromeda (1554-1556) by Titian
Am still trying (in advanced age) to suss out the difference between compulsive v obsessive behaviour – especially the repetitive kind that attempts to foul up internet-based blogsites.
Thanks GWO for providing a textbook example, one we can all analyze and generally mull-over, were we so inclined.
There’s a simple riposte – whatever your beef, prior negative experience, GWO – whatever.
Kindly go away, or – to put it more baldly – push off. Take your chip-on-shoulder elsewhere.