 |
 |
At 01:47 PM 2/7/01 -0600, you wrote: >This is REALLY off the top of my head (it comes from my "other life" as a >numismatist) but there are classical Greek coins from southern Italy that >show Hercules straddling the Nemean lion as he strangles it. It looks >very much as if he were riding it. I would not be surprised to learn that >some sort of visual vocabulary of hero/lion transferred that position from >Herakles to Samson. For what it's worth... >TGD moreover, that image of man on animal easily conflates (or replaces) some of the more interesting early romanesque capitals in which the creature is half-man, half animal. the transformation into narrative, and to an antagonistic relationship with the wild beast suggests just the kind of "humanization" of xnty that lynn white proposed as part of his religious explanation for the rise of technology in the 11 and 12th cns. while i agree with the main lines of the argument, i don't think it explains as much as describes the process. r Richard Landes Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University Department of History 704 Commonwealth Ave. Suite 205 226 Bay State Road Boston MA 02215 Boston MA 02215 617-358-0226 of 358-0225 fax 617-353-2558 of 353-2556 fax http://www.mille.org [log in to unmask]