Hyperboreans and...Hadrian!

Recently, I read a book by Timothy P. Bridgman called Hyperboreans: Myth and History in Celtic-Hellenic Contexts. It’s not a bad book, and Tim himself is a very nice individual (I’ve met him in person perhaps twice at various conferences over the years), though he repeatedly stresses how all of these matters are fictional, mythical, and not real, which as a polytheist kind of gets on my nerves on occasion, especially when it isn’t necessary to repeat it (or even say it at all). What his basic premise is, though, is that in earlier strands of Greek belief, Hyperborea seems to have been to the north and east of Greece, possibly in the territories of the Scythians and/or the Thracians, because Mt. Haemus in Thrace was considered the spot where Boreas blew from, therefore Hyperborea would have been beyond that. However, as time went on and as contacts with the more western barbarian peoples like the Gauls/Celts increased, Hyperborea seemed to shift locations somewhat from the north and east to the north and west. Indeed, this is an intriguing idea, and there have even been some Celticists who have suggested the “Forty-Meter Structure” at Emain Macha in Ireland might be a prototype for the Hyperborean temples mentioned in some sources in relation to Apollon; they even suggest that Cú Chulainn might be related to, derived from/influenced by, or perhaps may even be a source for, Apollon himself.

While this is certainly an interesting set of questions just in general, and Hyperborea has been more in my mind for the last several months due to my Thracian contacts these days, one thing really made me sit up and take notice when reading Bridgman’s book recently. One of the major sources he consults for the evolving views of Hyperborea is Antimachus of Colophon. I’ve mentioned him before because in various sources (both the Historia Augusta and Cassius Dio) it is mentioned that Hadrian favored him over Homer. Not much of Antimachus’ work has survived, unfortunately, but some of what has survived includes the earliest transpositions of Hyperborea from east to west, and in particular some fragments from his work Lyde which discuss the birth of Apollon and Artemis to Leto in her wanderings from Hyperborea.

If Hadrian was a connoisseur of Antimachus’ work and an advocate for it, this suggests an interesting possibility to me. Is it possible that because Hadrian traveled extensively in Thrace during the Dacian Wars under Trajan, and thus may have been of the opinion that Hyperborea wasn’t to be found there, that instead, once he became emperor, that was all the more reason to tour parts of Germania and Britannia to get “closer to the source” where Hyperborea would have been concerned, at least in the possibilities raised by Antimachus? The Alps were identified with the Rhipean Mountains, the range that was said to separate the Hyperboreans in their Golden Age-style existence from the rest of the mortal world, in Antimachus’ work; though the Hyperboreans were not immortal, they were thought to be very long-lived. Hadrian was certainly no stranger to transalpine travel…

I don’t have much more to venture in terms of theorizing on this point; it’s only a possibly faint thread that could be pondered upon in terms of Hadrian and his literary influences, and how some of these may have influenced his eventual travels and career as emperor. Up around and beyond Hadrian’s Wall in Britain, there are inscriptions to Apollo Maponus; we’d likely not have those were it not for Hadrian’s travels and foundations in northern Britain. Thus, one has to wonder if there may be more to this possibility than meets the eye…