Aristeas

Aristeas of Proconnesos ( altgr. Ἀριστέας, lat Aristeas Proconnesius ) lived in the 7th century BC and was an ancient Greek poet and magician.

The journey and the epic

Born the son of a Kaystrobios on the island located in the Sea of ​​Marmara Proconnesos, undertook Aristeas, " driven by Apollo ecstasy " ( Herodotus, IV, 13), allegedly a long journey to the north of the Black Sea lying countries of the Scythians and Issedonen. In his epic Arimaspeia (Greek Ἀριμάσπεια, such as: poem about the Arimaspen ) he was a mythical embellished report on the more distant peoples living, of whom told him the Issedonen, namely the mythical one-eyed Arimaspen, the ( fictional) Gold-Guarding Griffins as well as the living " over the North Wind ", that is on the edge of the world to the Okeanos Hyperboreans.

The most important witness for the lost apart from a few fragments poem is Herodotus (IV 13-15).

Aristeas as Shaman

Herodotus also tells of the reminiscent of shamanism personality of Aristeas. For this to have once come in Proconnesos in a fulling and died suddenly. But while the Walker opened to teach Aristeas ' members, and spread the message in the city, a newly -arrived traveler had reported that he had met Aristeas go on the road to Cyzicus and chat with him. When they got on the House of Walker, was found indeed no corpse. It was not until " the seventh year " Aristeas reappeared in Proconnesos and composed as his travelogue Arimaspeia ( Herodotus IV 14).

Then Aristeas disappeared again and appeared 240 (!) Years later in Metapontum in southern Italy, whose inhabitants he commanded to build an altar and Apollo beside his image with the name inscription " Aristeas of Proconnesos " set up. Apollon had arrived in Italy namely alone to Metapontum, and he, Aristeas, had been a companion of the god a raven. When the Metapontier the oracle of Delphi asked, commanded them Apollon by the mouth of his priest actually to obey the phenomenon, so that even the time of Herodotus altar and statue in the Agora of Metapontum stood ( Herodotus IV 15).