As its long title indicates, this book by Adrienne Mayor looks like a wonder cabinet or Wunderkammer of ancient curiosities. At times it may have reminded us of a kind of bestiary, an anthology, “a bundle of fifty” texts (2).
This is an eminently informative book, for readers of all ages (and therein lies its main achievement). The author recommends her “scholarly publications” (9) to those seeking exhaustive and extensive documentation and bibliographies.
The predominant theme is scientific curiosities, especially in the natural sciences. However, very diverse topics are dealt with, such as tourism (see “Grand Tourists in Greece, from Lord Byron to Sigmund Freud”) or sports (see “Who Were the First Recreational Mountain Climbers?”), among others. This heterogeneity and apparent inconsistency are explained by Mayor’s compositional process, as she is interested in “the borderlands or crossroads between realms” where “different rules apply-or maybe there are no rules at all” (2), resulting in “an eclectic, even eccentric selection of topics”. In this sense, the process of composing the book is similar to that of a catalogue: “Whenever my curiosity is piqued by something that seems out of the ordinary or unaccounted for in ancient writings, I immediately look for explanatory footnotes and commentaries. When they are missing or incomplete, I mark the spot and begin a file” (1). In consequence, the selection may seem incoherent, especially in the last sections, and not only in terms of topics, but also in terms of chronology. But this, far from being an impediment, enriches the book and makes it more entertaining and fresher.
The tone and scope are predominantly generalist, as the author emphasizes on several occasions. The origin of the texts (articles originally published on the website Wonders and Marvels or in journals and magazines such as Military History Quarterly, London Review of Books or Sports Afield) explains this treatment. However, although the references are sometimes missing, “these articles distill a goodly amount of research” (8). In this sense, the book is not intended to be a scholarly contribution, but to “exemplify the impossibility of reaching certainty” (8). On many occasions, the different texts that make up the book can serve as an introductory overview to a given topic, as a companion. Besides all this, it is a tremendously entertaining book.
The book is divided into four parts: “Animals: Fabulous, Real, and Extinct”, “Formidable Women”, “Curious History and Science”, and “Travelers, Tattoos, and Tyrants”.
If these sections already paint a heterogeneous picture, within each one of them the most varied topics follow one after the other. In “Animals: Fabulous, Real, and Extinct” (chapters 1-20) there are fabulous animals, fossils (and relics such as supposed unicorn horns or griffin claws) of dubious or erroneous attribution and fake fossils, poisons of uncertain (animal) origin, the pet-vultures of the Roman legions, sea monsters, collections, weasels and ferrets as pets in history, but also a Durrell-like narration about the ferrets owned by Adrienne Mayor and her husband Josh (Denise, Spike and others), or the legends that most probably testify to the discovery of the fossil remains that turned into fearsome griffins in the Aegean islands or among the Scythians, or into dragons vanquished among the canyons of Arizona and discovered by the people of Geronimo. The inquiry is aimed at answering the question: “What were these creatures?” (27).
We find brilliant pieces such as “Geronimo’s Dragon” or “Hunting Griffins. An Imaginary Letter to a Paleontologist”, addressed to the legendary Jack Horner, where she summarizes her “specialty”: “I had been poring over what I called ‘unclassified residua,’ the outtakes of ancient history, apparent dead ends of classical studies. These enigmatic messages were too obscure and too unrelated to other accepted factoids for ‘objective’ classical scholars to / pursue” (119-120).
Some of these contributions, of different origins and dates of publication, invite the reader to read Mayor’s other volumes, which she has devoted to some of these suggestive aspects of natural history and ideas, facing the clash between prejudice and historiography, cryptozoology and palaeontology, legend and philology: The First Fossil Hunters (2000), Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs. Unconventional Warfare in the Ancient World (2003), or Fossil Legends of the First Americans (2005).
Mayor has devoted an interesting volume (The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World, 2014) and numerous scattered works to the elucidation of what is historical behind the mythical figure of the Amazons, and the second section, “Formidable Women” (chapters 21-30), is given over almost entirely to them. Mayor follows in the tradition of the pioneer Pierre Petit, who argued that Amazons were historical (De Amazonibus, 1685), and to whom she devotes a chapter. She studies some unforeseen and very suggestive aspects of the Amazons, as in “Beauty Secrets of the Ancient Amazons”, a look at the “intimate accounts of the Scythian lifestyle” (179) that starts from the remains in the Scythian burials: “Many of the horsewomen’s bones bore signs of injuries, such as broken limbs from falls, bowed legs, arthritis, combat wounds, and embedded arrowheads” (174), and then she poses the question: “How did saddle-sore, battle-scarred Amazons relax and tend to their bodies?” (174).
The mythical warrior women are considered in historical and intellectual contexts as diverse as the epic of Virgil, the Platonic dialogue, the “reportage” of Herodotus, the cultural environment in the times of the reign of Charles II and the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in which Anne Killigrew, maid of honour to future queen of England, writes her first poem.
In the chapter dedicated to “Camilla. Why is there an Amazon in the Aeneid” we find one of the key ideological interpretations central to the debate on Amazonism: “Amazons always die young and beautiful. This is often seen as just another example of misogyny. But Amazons were foreigners–barbarians–and in patriotic mythologies of warrior cultures like Greece and Rome, the foe must be strong, fearsome, worthy of fighting and defeating” (193); “Camilla, though defeated, serves as an exemplary heroine whose robust native Italian roots will nourish and invigorate the new Roman era” (193).
An interesting precedent is set by Plato (to whom she dedicates the chapter “Plato and the Amazons”): “Plato not only recognized the link [between women warriors among ancient Scythians and the Amazons of Greek myths] and understood the logic of their lifestyle; he also used it to justify having both men and women serve as soldiers in the ideal state” (197).
This section also considers the case of other warrior queens from the most diverse spheres and periods, such as the “Arab Warrior Queens”, from the queens Zabibi and Samsi (8th century BC) to the present day: “In 2019, 134 female cadets graduated from Khawla bint Al Azwar Military School,…sponsored by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality” (182). And it closes with a chapter (“Wine Goblets and Women’s Breasts”) that explores the origins of the relationship between wine, toast, and the various vessels with women’s breasts, from the very popular mastoi of ancient Greece or the bust of Helena that would have shaped a vessel enshrined in the rhodian Temple of Athena (Pliny, Nat. 33.81: Helena sacravit calicem… mammae suae mensura) to Helmut Newton’s photography.
In “Curious History and Science” we find ten texts, three of them the longest and perhaps the most interesting, dedicated to issues related to the sea (“Ghost Ships”, “Mirages at Sea”, “Winds in Ancient Myth and History”). In this section Mayor’s method of taking advantage of a sometimes minimal, sometimes anecdotal, scientific curiosity from ancient times to relate it to other similar modern phenomena is very clear. The most extreme case is “Sweating Truth in Ancient Carthage: A New Appreciation of Flaubert’s Punic Fever Dream,” where Flaubert’s experience is the earliest reference to the fever dream phenomenon. In “Ghost Ships”, to give another example, much more space is devoted to commenting on the cases of famous derelict ships of the late 19th century than to dealing with this subject in antiquity. Something similar occurs in “Mirages at Sea”, where several cases of contemporary “marine mirages” are collected.
Mayor, in this and other sections, usually seeks in the modern cases she comments on an explanation for what seems fantastic in antiquity: derelict ships in the case of ghost ships, for example. If anything, this part demonstrates the survival of urban legends throughout history.
The last part, “Travelers, Tattoos, and Tyrants”, is the most varied. It deals with topics that a priori do not even seem to fit into the categories of scientific or historical oddities, such as sports, murder, or tourism, whether in classical antiquity (“Tourists in Classical Antiquity”) or in modern times (“Grand Tourists in Greece, from Lord Byron to Sigmund Freud”). The best texts in this part are those dedicated to tattoos (“Ancient Tattoos” and “Tattoos in Ancient China”), which go beyond Greece or Rome and deal with the art of tattooing in Egypt, China, or Siberia. These two chapters are accompanied by wonderful illustrations.
As we said before, if anything can be missed in this edition, which is enriched by beautiful illustrations (some by the author herself), it is a minimal bibliographical appendix that not only collects the ancient sources (it is briefly noted that the author usually uses the translations of the Loeb collection), but also allows the curious reader to broaden his or her reading by following the trail of such an exuberant array of information. Although the absence of bibliographical references lightens the reading and no doubt recalls yesteryear’s fascinating repertoires of anthropological anecdotes with little or no documentation, the book would have benefited from a complete bibliography. The three pages of notes (391-393) do not satisfy the curiosity that Mayor knows how to awaken in her readers.
The book lacks anything resembling conclusions, perhaps because it is no more than a personal, disorderly, eclectic sampling of curiosities related to antiquity. But we could say that it leaves an aroma (“The Scent of Leaders” is the last text maybe for a reason). In closing the book, we recall the words with which Mayor concludes her introduction: “I hope you find pleasure in browsing this compilation of my souvenirs from the marches, wondrous hunting grounds for the study of human curiosity” (9). Mayor is able to give a sense of wonder to her inquiries and, without losing rigor, she brings it back to the academic world. In this sense, the book more than fulfils its objectives: we have found pleasure in reading it.