Background Physika kai Mystika, usually attributed today to Bolus,136 Democritus relates in the first person that Ostanes died “before our teaching was completed,”137 and that they therefore summoned Ostanes from Hades in order to obtain the rest of the master’s teachings.138 Subsequently Ostanes’ hidden books, the books of his ancestors, were revealed inside a pillar (rsñkg) in the temple.139 Ostanes brought the books out of the pillar himself for the group to examine. Again, Bolus is apparently either the author of this elaborate legend or the one who transmitted it. Assuming that the date of Bolus ca 200 bce is correct, the idea of a Persian magus recovering his ancestral science from Egypt becomes quite old. Further testimony for the argument that Bolus transmitted or created the legend of Ostanes comes from the Oration against the Hellenes by Tatian, a Mesopotamian of the second century (and therefore born under Parthian rule), who received a good Hellenic education and lived in the Roman Empire, where he converted to Christianity, eventually returning to his Assyrian homeland, where he died. In his tirade against the pagan Hellenes he says “Concerning the Sympathies and Antipathies according to Democritus,” that “the one vaunting the Mage Ostanes will be given over as food for the eternal fire on the day of consummation.”140 An Alphabetical Treatise on Sympathies and Antipathies of Stones is attributed to Bolus of Mendes by the Byzantine encyclopedia Suda.141 Probably this is the work referred to by Tatian. It is not impossible that a figure like Ostanes could have been sent to Egypt and have participated in the Egyptian priesthood under the Achaemenids.142 It should
136. On this attribution see Bidez and Cumont 1938: 1.198–207; Festugière 1.224–238; Beck 1991: 562–563. 137. lgdåpx ôlËm sekeixhåmsxm, Berthelot and Ruelle 1888: 2.42; also Bidez and Cumont 1938: 2.317. 138. The whole account is given with commentary and references by Bidez and Cumont 1938: 2.317–320. An English translation with some comments appears in Lindsay 1970: 102–103. 139. < O dç $ Ors mg| ìfiarjem ém aÃs© s | pasqÛa| sehgratq¨rhai b¨bkot|, Bidez and Cumont 1938: 2.318.6–7. The translation of Lindsay 1970: 103 is mistaken: “However [the son] Ostanes told us that it was in this column his father’s books had been placed” (bracketed expression added by Lindsay). The interpretation involving a second Ostanes (Ostanes the Younger, it would seem), who had put his books in the pillar for safe keeping, is not necessary. Rather it appears that the same (unique) Ostanes, already summoned from the dead, said that the books of his ancestors (not of his father) were stored in that pillar. 140. Tatian, Oratio contra Graecos 17. Peq≠ c q sËm jas søm Dglæjqisom ntlpaheiËm se ja≠ msipaheiËm . . . ¡ søm l com $ Ors mgm jatv›lemo| ém ôlåqy rtmseke¨a| ptqø| aÆxm¨ot boqÜ paqadohñresai. The whole passage is given with notes by Bidez and Cumont 1938: 2.293–296. 141. The Suda lists two different figures named Bolus, one “Bolus Democritus” and the other “Bolus of Mendes, Pythagorean,” but these have been regarded as the same figure since the argument of M. Wellmann, 1921: 16. 142. Moreover, the hieroglyphic inscriptions of the Achaemenids and their officials (Posener 1936) demonstrate that Persian officials resided in Egypt and took Egyptian names and titles, and that the Achaemenid kings supported the building of temples to Egyptian gods and made offerings to them. The ¢wārizmian (!) whose name appears in the Aramaic papyri from Elephantine in Egypt of this period (Cowley 1923: 15) was interpreted by A. D. H. Bivar as possibly “a pensioned survivor from Xerxes’ Grand Army” (CHI 3.1.181).