A Nyíregyházi Jósa András Múzeum évkönyve 47. (Nyíregyháza, 2005)

Régészet - János Makkay: The Miracle Stag in Ancient Greek mythical stories and their Indo-Iranian counterparts

The Miracle Stag Plutarch tells the story of how in 344 BC, a 12-year old Alexander won the horse. Philonicus the Thessalian, a horse dealer offered the horse to King Philip II for the sum of 13 or 16 talents. Since no one could tame the animal, Philip wasn't interested, but his son Alexander was and promised to pay for the horse should he fail to tame it. Alexander was allowed to try and surprised everyone by subduing it. Alexander spoke soothingly and turned the horse away so that the horse didn't see its own shadow, which seemed to distress it, and so tamed the horse. Pseudo-Callisthenes presents a mythic variant of Bucephalus' origin. In this tale, Philip is presented with a colt bred on his own estates, the heroic attributes of the animal surpasses Pegasus. The mythic attributes of the animal are further reinforced by the Delphic Oracle, which tells Philip that the destined king of the world will be the one who rides Bucephalus, a horse with the mark of the ox's head on his haunch. Like his hero and ancestor Achilleus, Alexander viewed his horses as "known to excel all others - for they are immortal. Poseidon gave them to my father Peleus, who in his turn gave them to myself. Short summary of Indo-Iranian and Greek details Ancient Greek beliefs and sacrificial customs connected to horses could have been introduced to Greece parallel, and contemporanously, with the introduction of domesticated horses from the Lower Danubian area and the Volga-Don-Dnieper steppe belt from the beginning of the 2

nd Mill. B.C. onwards, especially when, as suggested elsewhere, Early-Iranian (or Indo-Aryan?) lords invaded Middle Mycenaean Greece around 1700 B.C. Such, and other, correlations suggested me, already in 2000, that a number of customs, features and find typs had become implanted into Greece in connection with the arrival of the first Mycenaean rulers. Direct male antecedents of the Mycenaean warrior aristocracy did not speak an early Greek (Achaean or other) tongue but they where speakers of an Indo-Iranian dialectal group, like their Indo-Aryan, Mitannian and Proto-Iranian peers who were also succesful charioteers, and invaded their later historic homelands contemporary to the foundation of Mycenaean power around the middle of the 17. Century B.C. (when the first graves of grave circle B at Mycenae were buried) (MAKKAY 2000. passim, and esp. 60-62. See also MAKKAY 2003. 28-39.). The use of the horse has generally been postulated as one of the main reasons why peoples speaking Indo-Iranian languages were able to dominate the huge parts of Eurasia into which they expanded during the first half of the 2

nd Mill. B.C. The appearance both of new types of objects and new customs and mythical stories (also related to gold antlered hinds and gold harnessed horses) can be best explained by postulating the intrusion of foreign groups. The geographical origins of these mythical stories and customs definitely point to somewhere in the north from the Lower Danube and further to the east on the steppe and forest steppe belts. There are reasons to regard the arrival of northern objects and mythical stories as an invasion of agressive groups rather than as a process of diffusion or wave of advance: first of all the appearance of chariotry, the introduction of the domesticated horse and related customs (horse harnessing, horse sacrifice, stelae with representations of chariot, hunting scene with a stag on a gold ring from grave IV in Myceanae - CORPUS 1964. No. 16.). Mythical narratives and magic gifts, characteristic only for more northern territories, surely belonged to the list of such elements of steppic origin, together with new type of horse harness (disc-shaped cheek-pieces) and weapons (new type of the composite bow). The Indo-Aryan name of Meriones, the charioteer of Idomeneus (MAKKAY 2003. 29-32.),"

19 and the magic power of Autolykos (a sorcerer who knew how to put J

'' For Indo-Aryan Marianini-maryannu see MAYRHOFER 1966. 17.. 22., 25-26., 29., 142 [s.v.). MAYRHOFER 1974. 16., and 87 (s.v. Mariannu), with rich literature. 43