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]
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