The mysterious chasm of Hierapolis, with its deadly mist, has not been discovered in modern times; indeed it [pg 207] would seem to have vanished even in antiquity.623 It may have been destroyed by an earthquake. But another marvel of the Sacred City remains to this day. The hot springs with their calcareous deposit, which, like a wizard's wand, turns all that it touches to stone, excited the wonder of the ancients, and the course of ages has only enhanced the fantastic splendour of the great transformation scene. The stately ruins of Hierapolis occupy a broad shelf or terrace on the mountain-side commanding distant views of extraordinary beauty and grandeur, from the dark precipices and dazzling snows of Mount Cadmus away to the burnt summits of Phrygia, fading in rosy tints into the blue of the sky. Hills, broken by wooded ravines, rise behind the city. In front the terrace falls away in cliffs three hundred feet high into the desolate treeless valley of the Lycus. Over the face of these cliffs the hot streams have poured or trickled for thousands of years, encrusting them with a pearly white substance like salt or driven snow. The appearance of the whole is as if a mighty river, some two miles broad, had been suddenly arrested in the act of falling over a great cliff and transformed into white marble. It is a petrified Niagara. The illusion is strongest in winter or in cool summer mornings when the mist from the hot springs hangs in the air, like a veil of spray resting on the foam of the waterfall. A closer inspection of the white cliff, which attracts the traveller's attention at a distance of twenty miles, only adds to its beauty and changes one illusion for another. For now it seems to be a glacier, its long pendent stalactites looking like icicles, and the snowy whiteness of its smooth expanse being tinged here and there with delicate hues of blue, rose and green, all the colours of the rainbow. These petrified cascades of Hierapolis are among the wonders of the world. Indeed they have probably been without a rival in their kind ever since the famous white and pink terraces or staircases of Rotomahana in New Zealand were destroyed by a volcanic eruption.
The hot springs which have wrought these miracles at [pg 208] Hierapolis rise in a large deep pool among the vast and imposing ruins of the ancient city. The water is of a greenish-blue tint, but clear and transparent. At the bottom may be seen the white marble columns of a beautiful Corinthian colonnade, which must formerly have encircled the sacred pool. Shimmering through the green-blue water they look like the ruins of a Naiad's palace. Clumps of oleanders and pomegranate-trees overhang the little lake and add to its charm. Yet the enchanted spot has its dangers. Bubbles of carbonic acid gas rise incessantly from the bottom and mount like flickering particles of silver to the surface. Birds and beasts which come to drink of the water are sometimes found dead on the bank, stifled by the noxious vapour; and the villagers tell of bathers who have been overpowered by it and drowned, or dragged down, as they say, to death by the water-spirit.
The streams of hot water, no longer regulated by the care of a religious population, have for centuries been allowed to overflow their channels and to spread unchecked over the tableland. By the deposit which they leave behind they have raised the surface of the ground many feet, their white ridges concealing the ruins and impeding the footstep, except where the old channels, filled up solidly to the brim, now form hard level footpaths, from which the traveller may survey the strange scene without quitting the saddle. In antiquity the husbandmen used purposely to lead the water in rills round their lands, and thus in a few years their fields and vineyards were enclosed with walls of solid stone. The water was also peculiarly adapted for the dyeing of woollen stuffs. Tinged with dyes extracted from certain roots, it imparted to cloths dipped in it the finest shades of purple and scarlet.624
[pg 209]We cannot doubt that Hierapolis owed its reputation as a holy city in great part to its hot springs and mephitic vapours. The curative virtue of mineral and thermal springs was well known to the ancients, and it would be interesting, if it were possible, to trace the causes which have gradually eliminated the superstitious element from the use of such waters, and so converted many old seats of volcanic religion into the medicinal baths of modern times. It was an article of Greek faith that all hot springs were sacred to Hercules.625 “Who ever heard of cold baths that were sacred to Hercules?” asks Injustice in Aristophanes; and Justice admits that the brawny hero's patronage of hot baths was the excuse alleged by young men for sprawling all day in the steaming water when they ought to have been sweating in the gymnasium.626 Hot springs were said to have been first produced for the refreshment of Hercules after his labours; some ascribed the kindly thought and deed to Athena, others to Hephaestus, and others to the nymphs.627 The warm water of these sources appears to have been used especially to heal diseases of the skin; for a Greek proverb, “the itch of Hercules,” was applied to persons in need of hot baths for the scab.628 On the strength of his connexion with medicinal springs Hercules set up as a patron of the healing art. In heaven, if we can trust Lucian, he even refused to give place to Aesculapius himself, and the difference between the two deities led to a very unseemly brawl. “Do you mean to say,” demanded Hercules of his father Zeus, in a burst of indignation, “that this apothecary is to sit down to table [pg 210] before me?” To this the apothecary replied with much acrimony, recalling certain painful episodes in the private life of the burly hero. Finally the dispute was settled by Zeus, who decided in favour of Aesculapius on the ground that he died before Hercules, and was therefore entitled to rank as senior god.629
Among the hot springs sacred to Hercules the most famous were those which rose in the pass of Thermopylae, and gave to the defile its name of the Hot Gates.630 The warm baths, called by the natives “the Pots,” were enlarged and improved for the use of invalids by the wealthy sophist Herodes Atticus in the second century of our era. An altar of Hercules stood beside them.631 According to one story, the hot springs were here produced for his refreshment by the goddess Athena.632 They exist to this day apparently unchanged, although the recession of the sea has converted what used to be a narrow pass into a wide, swampy flat, through which the broad but shallow, turbid stream of the Sperchius creeps sluggishly seaward. On the other side the rugged mountains descend in crags and precipices to the pass, their grey rocky sides tufted with low wood or bushes wherever vegetation can find a foothold, and their summits fringed along the sky-line with pines. They remind a Scotchman of the “crags, knolls, and mounds confusedly hurled” in which Ben Venue comes down to the Silver Strand of Loch Katrine. The principal spring bursts from the rocks just at the foot of the steepest and loftiest part of the range. After forming a small pool it flows in a rapid stream eastward, skirting the foot of the mountains. The water is so hot that it is almost painful to hold the hands in it, at least near the source, and steam rises thickly from its surface along the course of the brook. Indeed the clouds of white steam and the strong sulphurous smell acquaint the traveller with his approach to the famous spot before he comes in sight of the springs. The water is clear, but has the appearance of being of a deep sea-blue or sea-green [pg 211] colour. This appearance it takes from the thick, slimy deposits of blue-green sulphur which line the bed of the stream. From its source the blue, steaming, sulphur-reeking brook rushes eastward for a few hundred yards at the foot of the mountain, and is then joined by the water of another spring, which rises much more tranquilly in a sort of natural bath among the rocks. The sides of this bath are not so thickly coated with sulphur as the banks of the stream; hence its water, about two feet deep, is not so blue. Just beyond it there is a second and larger bath, which, from its square shape and smooth sides, would seem to be in part artificial. These two baths are probably the Pots mentioned by ancient writers. They are still used by bathers, and a few wooden dressing-rooms are provided for the accommodation of visitors. Some of the water is conducted in an artificial channel to turn a mill about half a mile off at the eastern end of the pass. The rest crosses the flat to find its way to the sea. In its passage it has coated the swampy ground with a white crust, which sounds hollow under the tread.633
We may conjecture that these remarkable springs furnished the principal reason for associating Hercules with this district, and for laying the scene of his fiery death on the top of the neighbouring Mount Oeta. The district is volcanic, and has often been shaken by earthquakes.634 Across the strait the island of Euboea has suffered from the same cause and at the same time; and on its southern shore sulphureous springs, like those of Thermopylae, but much hotter and more powerful, were in like manner dedicated to Hercules.635 The strong medicinal qualities of the [pg 212] waters, which are especially adapted for the cure of skin diseases and gout, have attracted patients in ancient and modern times. Sulla took the waters here for his gout;636 and in the days of Plutarch the neighbouring town of Aedepsus, situated in a green valley about two miles from the springs, was one of the most fashionable resorts of Greece. Elegant and commodious buildings, an agreeable country, and abundance of fish and game united with the health-giving properties of the baths to draw crowds of idlers to the place, especially in the prime of the glorious Greek spring, the height of the season at Aedepsus. While some watched the dancers dancing or listened to the strains of the harp, others passed the time in discourse, lounging in the shade of cloisters or pacing the shore of the beautiful strait with its prospect of mountains beyond mountains immortalized in story across the water.637 Of all this Greek elegance and luxury hardly a vestige remains. Yet the healing springs flow now as freely as of old. In the course of time the white and yellow calcareous deposit which the water leaves behind it, has formed a hillock at the foot of the mountains, and the stream now falls in a steaming cascade from the face of the rock into the sea.638 Once, after an earthquake, the springs ceased to flow for three days, and at the same time the hot springs of Thermopylae dried up.639 The incident proves the relation of these Baths of Hercules on both sides of the strait to each other and to volcanic agency. On another occasion a cold spring suddenly burst out beside the hot springs of Aedepsus, and as its water was supposed to be peculiarly beneficial to health, patients hastened from far and near to drink of it. But the generals of King Antigonus, anxious to raise a revenue, imposed a tax on the use of the water; and the spring, as if in disgust at being turned to so base a use, disappeared as suddenly as it had come.640
[pg 213]The association of Hercules with hot springs was not confined to Greece itself. Greek influence extended it to Sicily,641 Italy,642 and even to Dacia.643 Why the hero should have been chosen as the patron of thermal waters, it is hard to say. Yet it is worth while, perhaps, to remember that such springs combine in a manner the twofold and seemingly discordant principles of water and fire,644 of fertility and destruction, and that the death of Hercules in the flames seems to connect him with the fiery element. Further, the apparent conflict of the two principles is by no means as absolute as at first sight we might be tempted to suppose; for heat is as necessary as moisture to the support of animal and vegetable life. Even volcanic fires have their beneficent aspect, since their products lend a more generous flavour to the juice of the grape. The ancients themselves, as we have seen, perceived the connexion between good wine and volcanic soil, and proposed more or less seriously to interpret the vine-god Dionysus as a child of the fire.645 As a patron of hot springs Hercules combined the genial elements of heat and moisture, and may therefore have stood, in one of his many aspects, for the principle of fertility.
In Syria childless women still resort to hot springs in order to procure offspring from the saint or the jinnee of the waters.646 [pg 214] This, for example, they do at the famous hot springs in the land of Moab which flow through a wild gorge into the Dead Sea. In antiquity the springs went by the Greek name of Callirrhoe, the Fair-flowing. It was to them that the dying Herod, weighed down by a complication of disorders which the pious Jews traced to God's vengeance, repaired in the vain hope of arresting or mitigating the fatal progress of disease. The healing waters brought no alleviation of his sufferings, and he retired to Jericho to die.647 The hot springs burst in various places from the sides of a deep romantic ravine to form a large and rapid stream of lukewarm water, which rushes down the depths of the lynn, dashing and foaming over boulders, under the dense shade of tamarisk-trees and cane-brakes, the rocks on either bank draped with an emerald fringe of maidenhair fern. One of the springs falls from a high rocky shelf over the face of a cliff which is tinted bright yellow by the sulphurous water. The lofty crags which shut in the narrow chasm are bold and imposing in outline and varied in colour, for they range from red sandstone through white and yellow limestone to black basalt. The waters issue from the line where the sandstone and limestone meet. Their temperature is high, and from great clefts in the mountain-sides you may see clouds of steam rising and hear the rumbling of the running waters. The bottom of the glen is clothed and half choked with rank vegetation; for, situated far below the level of the sea, the hot ravine is almost African in climate and flora. Here grow dense thickets of canes with their feathery tufts that shake and nod in every passing breath of wind: here the oleander flourishes with its dark-green glossy foliage and its beautiful pink blossoms: here tall date-palms rear their stately heads wherever the hot springs flow. Gorgeous flowers, too, carpet the ground. Splendid orobanches, some pinkish purple, some bright yellow, grow in large tufts, each flower-stalk more than three feet high, and covered with blossoms from the ground upwards. An exquisite rose-coloured geranium abounds among the stones; and where the soil is a little richer than [pg 215] usual it is a mass of the night-scented stock, while the crannies of the rocks are gay with scarlet ranunculus and masses of sorrel and cyclamen. Over all this luxuriant vegetation flit great butterflies of brilliant hues. Looking down the far-stretching gorge to its mouth you see in the distance the purple hills of Judah framed between walls of black basaltic columns on the one side and of bright red sandstone on the other.648
Every year in the months of April and May the Arabs resort in crowds to the glen to benefit by the waters. They take up their quarters in huts made of the reeds which they cut in the thickets. They bathe in the steaming water, or allow it to splash on their bodies as it gushes in a powerful jet from a crevice in the rocks. But before they indulge in these ablutions, the visitors, both Moslem and Christian, propitiate the spirit or genius of the place by sacrificing a sheep or goat at the spring and allowing its red blood to tinge the water. Then they bathe in what they call the Baths of Solomon. Legend runs that Solomon the Wise made his bathing-place here, and in order to keep the water always warm he commanded the jinn never to let the fire die down. The jinn obey his orders to this day, but sometimes they slacken their efforts, and then the water runs low and cool. When the bathers perceive that, they say, “O Solomon, bring green wood, dry wood,” and no sooner have they said so than the water begins to gurgle and steam as before. Sick people tell the saint or sheikh, who lives invisible in the springs, all about their ailments; they point out to him the precise spot that is the seat of the malady, it may be the back, or the head, or the legs; and if the heat of the water diminishes, they call out, “Thy bath is cold, O sheikh, thy bath is cold!” whereupon the obliging sheikh stokes up the fire, and out comes the water boiling. But if in spite of their remonstrances the temperature of the spring [pg 216] continues low, they say that the sheikh has gone on pilgrimage, and they shout to him to hasten his return. Barren Moslem women also visit these hot springs to obtain children, and they do the same at the similar baths near Kerak. At the latter place a childless woman has been known to address the spirit of the waters saying, “O sheikh Solomon, I am not yet an old woman; give me children.”649 The respect thus paid by Arab men and women to the sheikh Solomon at his hot springs may help us to understand the worship which at similar spots Greek men and women used to render to the hero Hercules. As the ideal of manly strength he may have been deemed the father of many of his worshippers, and Greek wives may have gone on pilgrimage to his steaming waters in order to obtain the wish of their hearts.
How far these considerations may serve to explain the custom of burning Hercules, or gods identified with him, in effigy or in the person of a human being, is a question which deserves to be considered. It might be more easily answered if we were better acquainted with analogous customs in other parts of the world, but our information with regard to the worship of volcanic phenomena in general appears to be very scanty. However, a few facts may be noted.
The largest active crater in the world is Kirauea in Hawaii. It is a huge cauldron, several miles in circumference and hundreds of feet deep, the bottom of which is filled with boiling lava in a state of terrific ebullition; from the red surge rise many black cones or insulated craters belching columns of grey smoke or pyramids of brilliant flame from their roaring mouths, while torrents of blazing lava roll down their sides to flow into the molten, tossing sea of fire below. The scene is especially impressive by night, [pg 217] when flames of sulphurous blue or metallic red sweep across the heaving billows of the infernal lake, casting a broad glare on the jagged sides of the insulated craters, which shoot up eddying streams of fire with a continuous roar, varied at frequent intervals by loud detonations, as spherical masses of fusing lava or bright ignited stones are hurled into the air.650 It is no wonder that so appalling a spectacle should have impressed the imagination of the natives and filled it with ideas of the dreadful beings who inhabit the fiery abyss. They considered the great crater, we are told, as the primaeval abode of their volcanic deities: the black cones that rise like islands from the burning lake appeared to them the houses where the gods often amused themselves by playing at draughts: the roaring of the furnaces and the crackling of the flames were the music of their dance; and the red flaming surge was the surf wherein they played, sportively swimming on the rolling wave.651
For these fearful divinities they had appropriate names; one was the King of Steam or Vapour, another the Rain of Night, another the Husband of Thunder, another the Child of War with a Spear of Fire, another the Fiery-eyed Canoe-breaker, another the Red-hot Mountain holding or lifting Clouds, and so on. But above them all was the great goddess Pélé. All were dreaded: they never journeyed on errands of mercy but only to receive offerings or to execute vengeance; and their arrival in any place was announced by the convulsive trembling of the earth, by the lurid light of volcanic eruption, by the flash of lightning, and the clap of thunder. The whole island was bound to pay them tribute or support their temples and devotees; and whenever the chiefs or people failed to send the proper offerings, or incurred their displeasure by insulting them or their priests or breaking the taboos which should be observed round about the craters, they filled the huge cauldron on the top of Kirauea with molten lava, and spouted the fiery liquid on the surrounding country; or they would [pg 218] march to some of their other houses, which mortals call craters, in the neighbourhood of the sinners, and rushing forth in a river or column of fire overwhelm the guilty. If fishermen did not bring them enough fish from the sea, they would go down, kill all the fish, fill the shoals with lava, and so destroy the fishing-grounds. Hence, when the volcano was in active eruption or threatened to break out, the people used to cast vast numbers of hogs, alive or dead, into the craters or into the rolling torrent of lava in order to appease the gods and arrest the progress of the fiery stream.652 To pluck certain sacred berries, which grow on the mountain, to dig sand on its slopes, or to throw stones into the crater were acts particularly offensive to the deities, who would instantly rise in volumes of smoke, crush the offender under a shower of stones, or so involve him in thick darkness and rain that he could never find his way home. However, it was lawful to pluck and eat of the sacred berries, if only a portion of them were first offered to the goddess Pélé. The offerer would take a branch laden with clusters of the beautiful red and yellow berries, and standing on the edge of the abyss and looking towards the place where the smoke rose in densest volumes, he would say, “Pélé, here are your berries: I offer some to you, some I also eat.” With that he would throw some of the berries into the crater and eat the rest.653 A kind of brittle volcanic glass, of a dark-olive colour and semi-transparent, is found on the mountain in the shape of filaments as fine as human hair; the natives call it the hair of the goddess Pélé.654 Worshippers used to cast locks of their own hair into the crater of Kirauea as an offering to the dreadful goddess who dwelt in it. She had also a temple at the bottom of a valley, where stood a number of rude stone idols wrapt in white and yellow cloth. Once a year the priests and devotees of Pélé assembled there to perform certain rites and to feast on hogs, dogs, and fruit, which the [pg 219] pious inhabitants of Hamakua brought to the holy place in great abundance. This annual festival was intended to propitiate the volcanic goddess and thereby to secure the country from earthquakes and floods of molten lava.655 The goddess of the volcano was supposed to inspire people, though to the carnal eye the inspiration resembled intoxication. One of these inspired priestesses solemnly affirmed to an English missionary that she was the goddess Pélé herself and as such immortal. Assuming a haughty air, she said, “I am Pélé; I shall never die; and those who follow me, when they die, if part of their bones be taken to Kirauea (the name of the volcano), will live with me in the bright fires there.”656 For “the worshippers of Pélé threw a part of bones of their dead into the volcano, under the impression that the spirits of the deceased would then be admitted to the society of the volcanic deities, and that their influence would preserve the survivors from the ravages of volcanic fire.”657
This last belief may help to explain a custom, which some peoples have observed, of throwing human victims into volcanoes. The intention of such a practice need not be simply to appease the dreadful volcanic spirits by ministering to their fiendish lust of cruelty; it may be a notion that the souls of the men or women who have been burnt to death in the crater will join the host of demons in the fiery furnace, mitigate their fury, and induce them to spare the works and the life of man. But, however we may explain the custom, it has been usual in various parts of the world to throw human beings as well as less precious offerings into the craters of active volcanoes. Thus the Indians of Nicaragua used to sacrifice men, women, and children to the active volcano Massaya, flinging them into the craters: we are told that the victims went willingly to their fate.658 In the island of Siao, to the north of Celebes, a child was formerly sacrificed every year in order to keep the volcano Goowoong Awoo quiet. The poor wretch was tortured to death at a festival which lasted nine days. In later times the place of the child has [pg 220] been taken by a wooden puppet, which is hacked to pieces in the same way. The Galelareese of Halmahera say that the Sultan of Ternate used annually to require some human victims, who were cast into the crater of the volcano to save the island from its ravages.659 In Java the volcano Bromo or Bromok is annually worshipped by people who throw offerings of coco-nuts, plantains, mangoes, rice, chickens, cakes, cloth, money, and so forth into the crater.660 To the Tenggereese, an aboriginal heathen tribe inhabiting the mountains of which Bromo is the central crater, the festival of making offerings to the volcano is the greatest of the year. It is held at full moon in the twelfth month, the day being fixed by the high priest. Each household prepares its offerings the night before. Very early in the morning the people set out by moonlight for Mount Bromo, men, women, and children all arrayed in their best. Before they reach the mountain they must cross a wide sandy plain, where the spirits of the dead are supposed to dwell until by means of the Festival of the Dead they obtain admittance to the volcano. It is a remarkable sight to see thousands of people streaming across the level sands from three different directions. They have to descend into it from the neighbouring heights, and the horses break into a gallop when, after the steep descent, they reach the level. The gay and varied colours of the dresses, the fantastic costumes of the priests, the offerings borne along, the whole lit up by the warm beams of the rising sun, lend to the spectacle a peculiar charm. All assemble at the foot of the crater, where a market is held for offerings and refreshments. The scene is a lively one, for hundreds of people must now pay the vows which they made during the year. The priests sit in a long row on mats, and when the high priest appears the people pray, saying, “Bromo, we thank thee for all thy gifts and benefits with which thou ever blessest us, and for which we offer thee our thank-offerings to-day. Bless us, our children, and our children's children.” The prayers over, the high priest gives a signal, and the whole multitude arises and climbs the mountain. On reaching the edge of the [pg 221] crater, the pontiff again blesses the offerings of food, clothes, and money, which are then thrown into the crater. Yet few of them reach the spirits for whom they are intended; for a swarm of urchins now scrambles down into the crater, and at more or less risk to life and limb succeeds in appropriating the greater part of the offerings. The spirits, defrauded of their dues, must take the will for the deed.661 Tradition says that once in a time of dearth a chief vowed to sacrifice one of his children to the volcano, if the mountain would bless the people with plenty of food. His prayer was answered, and he paid his vow by casting his youngest son as a thank-offering into the crater.662
On the slope of Mount Smeroe, another active volcano in Java, there are two small idols, which the natives worship and pray to when they ascend the mountain. They lay food before the images to obtain the favour of the god of the volcano.663 In antiquity people cast into the craters of Etna vessels of gold and silver and all kinds of victims. If the fire swallowed up the offerings, the omen was good; but if it rejected them, some evil was sure to befall the offerer.664
These examples suggest that a custom of burning men or images may possibly be derived from a practice of throwing them into the craters of active volcanoes in order to appease the dreaded spirits or gods who dwell there. But unless we reckon the fires of Mount Argaeus in Cappadocia665 and of Mount Chimaera in Lycia,666 there is apparently no record of any mountain in Western Asia which has been in [pg 222] eruption within historical times. On the whole, then, we conclude that the Asiatic custom of burning kings or gods was probably in no way connected with volcanic phenomena. Yet it was perhaps worth while to raise the question of the connexion, even though it has received only a negative answer. The whole subject of the influence which physical environment has exercised on the history of religion deserves to be studied with more attention than it has yet received.667