The Ten Tribes and Other Monsters

Chapter 7 of Unit IV entangles the plot even more by intertwining the blend of the Alexander Legend and the Saga of Gog-Magog with a tale of the Lost Tribes. The medieval continuation of the Jewish story connects the tribes with the host of the Antichrist on the eve of the Final Battle between good and evil. 

The European literati feel free to replace the location of the exile of the Israelites further and further East, while their numbers skyrocket, posing the threat to the expansion of the Christendom. Some authors even hint at a secret plot between the local Jews and their distant brethren to overthrow the civilized order. 

My next chapter will tell about the Khazars which many obscure observers envisioned as the Jewish kingdom.  

"Back in the Early Middle Ages, the Christian literati would make exquisite efforts to conflate the entangled Alexander legend to the no less complicated saga of the Lost Tribes.

          Well-educated Europeans would visualize Gog-Magog, an inseparable pair of the Biblical mavericks, who were enclosed by an impregnable mountain range and locked by a man-made gate or a crenelated wall, residing in a secluded location, on a remote island or on a far-flung peninsula.

Paulus Orosius, an early fifth-century Roman priest and historian, discloses a new venue, reporting that the Israelite prisoners were deported to the area adjoining the Caspian Sea and experienced a baby boom. The Persians, he fancies, "drove great numbers of Jews into exile… and ordered them to settle in Hyrcania [a historical region in modern Iran] by the Caspian Sea. There they remain to the present day and have greatly increased in numbers." The Hispanic historian hints that in the distant future the outcasts will find the way out: "It is believed that at some time they will burst forth from this place." (1) 

However, their presumed escape neither involves the revenge on the Christendom, nor is linked to the blowing up of any barrier set up by Alexander. Moreover, the king of Macedon receives a cold show of bad press, being epitomized as “a whirlpool of sufferings and ill-wind for the entire East.” (2)

The contemporary of Orosius, a priest and a chronicler Sulpicious Severus, confirms that the expatriates are still subjected to the pagans, among whom he enlists Indians and Ethiopians: “the ten… never returned to their native country, and are to this day held under the sway of barbarous nations.” (3)

The era of the Crusades put on apocalyptic candles, upgrading the notorious Ten Tribes to the status of the Satan’s henchmen. On the other hand, many late medieval writers realized that the enclosure context would make the imprisoned people too frail and timid to carry a potential threat. So they looked for another explanation for the seclusion: the deportees are bound by exercising their vassal duties.

          Hugo Ripelin, a thirteenth-century Dominican monk, places his bet for the overlord of the revengeful tribes on the Queen of Amazonia. The Amazons, who have galloped from the classical texts, are another nation lured by Satan: "the Ten Tribes enclosed within the Caspian Mountains, however in such a way that they might leave if they were permitted… by the Queen of the Amazon, under whose rule and jurisdiction they live." (4) 

The Lost and Found Tribes

A Typical Notice 

https://www.juliemeek.com.au/lost-and-found/ 

A new chapter, The Lost and Found Tribes, seems to bypass my narrative about the Alexander Gates. However, it introduces the issue of the Ten Lost Tribes as it emerges both in history and in Biblical and post-Biblical Jewish thought. 

The Lost Tribes occupy an integral part of the Alexander legend and I thought it was important to explain how this topic had emerged before interweaving it with the medieval story. 

Chapter 6 of Unit IV entitled "In the Shadow of the Iron Gates" develops the following threads:

the collapse of Samaria and the rise of Jerusalem, the vision of the Biblical prophets about the return of the deportees, Mount Gerizim vs. Mount Zion, and the Emergence of the Ten Tribes. 

Besides helping the understanding of the peculiar twist of the medieval legend, this extract contributes to my understanding of the history of ancient Israel. You can view my previous approaches to this field: 

"The Generation of Exodus"

https://scriggler.com/DetailPost/Opinion/26251  

"Mesha the Dibonite Recovers His Voice"

https://scriggler.com/DetailPost/Opinion/27980 

I intend to use these materials in preparation for Book Four if I live that long. 

I think that the turbulent times of the Assyrian and Babylonian periods led to the emergence of the legend of the Ten Tribes. In actual history, most of the Israelites continued to reside in their land and eventually evolved into the Samaritans whose male lineages have been retained until this day. Their daughters, if they married the foreigners, would cease belonging to the "holy seed". 

Meanwhile, my narrative will turn to the medieval development of the Alexander legend where the Ten Tribes enclosed by the Iron Gates will oppose the civilized world, being enlisted in the host of the Antichrist. 

Alexander Versus Gog-Magog

My new chapter covers the conflation of the Hebrew myth of Gog-Magog with the Hellenistic legend of the Iron Gate. This is another step in writing a large unit, In the Shade of the Iron Gate. In this particular episode, I explain the motives of those who transformed the unpleasant experience of "barbarian" strikes into the sinister outbreak of monstrous forces on the eve of the Last Battle between the sons of light and the bastards of darkness.
Here is an excerpt:

"When medieval intellectuals discovered the enormous literary and ideological potential of conflating the Biblical myth of Gog-Magog with the Hellenistic legend of the Iron Gates, the romantic tale turned into a theological saga. The setting matched the everlasting conflict between the Christian realm of goodwill and learning versus the apocalyptic anti-world of evil and ignorance.

                The barrier sustains the line of demarcation between the opposite camps and facilitates the authoritarian control over the enclosed territory. “Historia Augusta” is a Late Latin collection of biographies describing the lives and deeds of the Roman rulers. In one of its profiles, an anonymous author praises Emperor Hadrian for putting up a rampart on the westernmost state border as an example of a sovereign who grasped the urgency of segregation between the law-abiding subjects and the illegal immigrants:  "the first to build a wall from sea to sea... to separate the barbarians from the Romans." (1)

                The wall features not only a brick-and-mortar boundary between the people of the sown and the nomads but also a wedge between the adepts of a certain faith and unbelievers. Ibn-Arabi, the philosopher of the Islamic Golden Age, commends the Possessor of Two Horns-the Koranic version of Alexander-for making “a barrier between those of God’s servants who obey him and those who disobey.” (2)

The master of the mountain pass, who functioned as Alexander’s governor, played a leading role in geopolitical games. The sad truth was that the defile recently shifted from the Christian to the Muslim sway. Confirming this, Michael Syrian makes a transit from hearsay tales to actual history: “In earlier times the kings of the peoples of the Orient were said to have guarded these gates, but at present, they are in the hands of the Arabs.” (3)

                The Syriac Early Christian literature, especially the late-seventh century Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, linked a barrier episode to the exploits of Alexander. The bulwark cried out for shielding the civilized nations from impure, polluted rabble. However, this time the European military genius confronted the sinister hordes of Gog-Magog rather than plundering barbarian tribes.        

Image: The henchmen of Antichrist are besieging the city of saints

Courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gog_and_Magog#/media/File:Toulouse_ms_815-049v-Gog%26Magog.jpg

A Kernel of Truth (2)

Image: While in transit…

Courtesy: http://www.journeymongolia.com/index.php/item?id=13

My new chapter takes a sincere look at the nomads, trying to access their contribution to the human culture as well as to understand why the pastoralist lifestyle was so hard to digest for the settled people. This extract poses an antithesis to the previous one where I picked up a choir of opinions of outsiders about the migrants. 

Unit IV is going to be the largest part of my book in terms of the number of chapters. The next extract will focus on the second fusion of the legend where Alexander as the guardian of civilization is opposed the ultimate enemy of Gog-Magog. 

Here is the extract from Chapter 4:

How come that the settled population still puts the pastoralists to shame for adhering to the “barbarian” lifestyle?  

These very people grazed their flocks on natural pasturelands of grassy plains and mountain slopes. Stock-herders turned their yurts into true homes that could be put up in the middle of nowhere and give shelter from the fury of the elements. The steppe nomads invented the wheel and perched their dwellings on carts to carry their possessions in wagon trains along beaten tracks. When in need of a reliable individual transport, these unbridled barbarians tamed the horse and adapted it for riding to engage in herding and hunting, trading and raiding. Their high-profile warriors learned how to use horse-drawn chariots as mobile archery platforms and shoot arrows from sigma-shaped compound bows while atop a steed. The migrants donned trousers and subsisted on curd cheese, the flesh of their livestock, and mare’s milk.

The nomadic diet struck the settled populace as bizarre as the steppe folk shunned consuming bread but had no scruples in devouring uncooked meat. Rabbi Petachia of Ratisbon who traveled from Prague to the Middle East in the latter half of the twelfth-century comments on the pastoral menu: “They eat no bread… but rice and millet, boiled in milk, as well as milk and cheese. They also put the pieces of flesh under the saddle of a horse… and, urging on the animal, cause it to sweat. The flesh getting warm, they eat it.” (1)

The European decision-makers and the literati would grasp the Caucasus as the frontier zone erected between the sown and the steppe. Beyond their lofty crags lay a vast belt of rolling plains hemmed by baking deserts and dense forests, pierced by steep mountains, and sliced by meandering rivers. This realm controlled by harsh continental climate, swept by incursions of piercing winds and blinding dust storms, and hammered with irregular blizzards and torrential rains, was covered by a carpet of lush grass in the warm season and a blanket of deep snow in winter. Its stubborn soil was too hard to produce grain but supplied sufficient pastures for nomadic livestock accustomed to tread down grasslands bereft of human settlements and fields.

Barbaria was a vast area with imprecise borders which sprawled across the Pontic and Caspian steppes. According to rumors, it stretched in width as far as the northern ocean and in length up to the mysterious dungeon from where the sun rises for its daily watch. Michael the Syrian, the twelfth-century patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church and the chronicler, defines the homeland of the Turks with unbounded generosity: "Their habitat extends from sunrise to the extreme north of the inhabited world." (2)

Responding to different names, this tough terrain hosted diverse tribes of mounted nomads who engaged non-stop in internecine feuds or preyed on the sedentary population. Sima Qian, the Chinese literati, denounces northern barbarians making devastating inroads on the Middle Kingdom across its frontier zone. He claims that “warfare is their business”. (3) What would the renowned historian have said about other favorite pastimes of steppe dwellers, like hunting trips and night drinking sessions, gambling and smoking weed?

A Kernel of Truth

Image: A nomad is getting his herd in shape
Courtesy: http://www.nationalgeographicexpeditions.com/expeditions/mongolia-tour/detail 

In this chapter, I would like to share my thoughts about steppe nomads.

This topic is very important for the development of my book which shows how the geographic imagination of Latin Europeans about the Far East altered. If up to the 13th century the furthest destination was India, it would later embrace China. What was in the middle? The fascinating world of the pastoralist nomads which was the antipode of Western Europe.

The nomads are currently receiving a better treatment in historical research. They are no longer considered the dead end of social and economic development but rather a specific mode of production conditioned by survival strategies of existence under the harsh climate and the tough competition.

Their mobility would give the steppe dwellers a fair chance to stay independent from the state authorities of the sedentary societies that would require taxes and conscription. The same lifestyle enabled the pastoralists to play a role in long-distance trade as the middle-men who can act as the guides or the guards or the travel companions of the merchant caravans.

Such environment demanded from the nomads to be arranged in kinship groups and seek the alliance of the warlords. Their endurance to severe conditions made them adroit raiders and troopers. The steppe aristocrats would exploit these qualities in time of crisis, amplifying the power that could allow them to form tribal confederations and even empires.

I have collected the new material and am trying to mix it with what I wrote before. This chapter will contrast with the previous one where I picked up the ancient and medieval perception of the nomads.

Beware of Barbarians

      Image: A Kazakh nomad “almost glued” to his mount

      Courtesy: https://metaphorimages.photoshelter.com/image/I0000lAn3o2uAWVA

My new chapter of Unit IV focuses on the treatment of nomadic pastoralists by the European literatti. I show that the pastoralist style was alien to well-educated authors and was shown as barbarian. Alexander the Great was applied as the guarding spirit of the oecumene- the civilization of the settled peoples. To match this role, he was commissioned to build the gate or the wall which was to shield the people of the sown from ugly and sinful steppe dwellers.

Here's the extract:

      

The sober report of Arrian Flavius, a Hellenistic historian and Roman general, about Alexander’s failed attempt to overhaul King Darius at the breach in the mountain wall could not suit the sophisticated taste of adventure lovers. As a response to the challenge, an entangled legend would spring up. In this tale, the Greek superstar obtained the mystical power and romantic nature. Acting as a Pan-Hellenic hegemon, he unleashed his troops in an attempt to conquer the habitable world. However, on reaching the ultimate borders of the humankind, he stumbled on weird and uncouth folks who were a far cry from anyone he had encountered before.

     The "wild nations" that Alexander of the legend dreaded so much were the pastoralists of the Eurasian steppes. Their lifestyle and manner of war diverged from those of the Greeks and seemed to undergo little changes throughout the ages. At the same time, the nomadic and sedentary worlds could not do without each other. The grassland "paradise" was speckled with barely seen paths leading to desert oases and seaside ports where the steppe products were exchanged for urban goods, ideas, and services.

When an ancient Greek would think about the nomads, the first thing that would come across his mind was Hippemolgi (Greek: “mare-milk drinkers”]. Homer immortalized this nickname in an unforgettable line where he contrasts their aristocratic manners with the koumiss consumption: “the lordly Hippemolgi who drink the milk of mares.” (2)

In the eyes of the settled onlookers, the restlessness of the pastoralists stems from the vagaries of the nomadic economy in which the well-being of the cattle drivers relies on the prosperity of their flocks. Strabo links the miserable life of the German “barbarians” with their aversion to agricultural labor: “they migrate with ease, because of the meagerness of their livelihood and because they do not till the soil or even store up food, but live in small huts that are merely temporary structures; … they live for the most part off their flocks… they load their household belongings on their wagons and … turn whithersoever they think best.” (3)

Julius Caesar subscribes to this view, elaborating on the Germans’ dairy and meat diet: “For agriculture, they have no zeal, and the greater part of their food consists of milk, cheese, and flesh.” (4)

The same bias against the pastoralists was adopted by medieval European authors. Gerald of Wales, the twelfth-century English cleric and historian, finds the contemporary Irish people unsophisticated because of their commitment to the animal husbandry. They are “a rude people, subsisting on the produce of their cattle only, and living themselves like beasts-a people that have not departed from the primitive habits of pastoral life.” Such folks, he refines, are prone to strict conservatism and will oppose any innovations, leading “the same life their fathers did in the woods and open pastures, neither willing to abandon their old habits or learn anything new. “(5) 

Alexander at the Caspian Gates

My new chapter points out to the Greek twist of the legend which relates to Alexander putting up a wall or a gate at a mountain pass.
I cite Arrian, one of our primary historical sources on Alexander, who mentions no such thing. I show that this yarn had already come into existence at the time of  Josephus Flavius, who makes it part of his narrative. I quote Pliny the Elder who testifies of a great confusion among his contemporaries concerning the location of the Caspian Gates.
I'd like to give you a taste of my writing:

"It was a long and breaking down chase. The bleeding but still alive Persian emperor took to flight into his eastern satrapies in the last-ditch effort to muster a new army against his victorious contender. The royal escape route passed through the Caspian Gates, a winding ground-level breach in a mountain wall. The pursuer, who would spare neither horses nor riders, was breathing down his neck in a desperate attempt to intercept the fleeting antagonist.

                At the close approach to the intended defile, Alexander learned to his bitter distress that his foe had managed to slip away through the jaws of a mousetrap. Recognizing a failure of his impulsive plan, the chaser had to suspend the hot pursuit, granting his weary troops a long-deserved repose. (1) The conqueror had neither time nor intention to erect neither a wall nor a gate as he had to catch up with his glory.

Pliny the Elder emphasizes the strategic significance of this venue, which served as the benchmark for the distance estimations in the course of the Greek military campaign across Asia: “In the itineraries of Alexander the Great, these gates were made the central or turning point in his expeditions.” (2)

The Roman scholar refers to the Iranian Caspian Gates, a narrow gorge cut in a chain of the Elburz Mountains, connecting Media with Parthia. He places this defile in the vicinity of Rhagae, an ancient city, which is currently absorbed by Tehran metropolis.

However, the writer defies the common error to attribute the same place-name to the mountain passage in the Caucasus. He cites a local defense network consisting of the gates with iron-covered beams and a rock fort “erected for the purpose of preventing the passage of the innumerable tribes.” (3) This barrier designed to repel barbarian raids has nothing to do with the historic Alexander who had never waged wars in this region.

By the time of Josephus Flavius, who flourished at the latter part of the first century CE, the legend of the Caucasian Caspian Gates had gained such a wide circulation that the Jewish historian did not hesitate to include it in his chronicle. The narrator relates that a nomadic tribe from the north bent on conducting a plundering raid in north-western Iran asked permission of a local king “who controlled the pass which Alexander the Great had blocked with iron gates.” (4)

                Classical men-of-letters believed that Alexander the Macedon had reached the rim of the civilized land; he had not dismounted until found himself at the gateway to India. He turned tail only after his exhausted servicemen had questioned his strategy in achieving the ultimate goal. In his farewell speech to the troops, he urges them (to no avail) to spread themselves thin and continue the conquest, confiding his dream of a world-wide polity: "… to this empire there will be no boundaries but what God Himself had made for the whole world." (5)

Plutarch gave the brave commander credit for spreading the Greek ideal of human society over entire Asia, overcoming "its uncivilized and brutish mode of life." (6) 

I'm currently studying other sources that describe the nomadic tribes of the Pontic steppes who became Alexander's antagonists in the legend. I will also include authentic information about these peculiar people who would astonish our classical commentators. 

I have recently begun to check the archaeological news on a regular basis. I read reports about extraordinary finds all over the world. These extracts may not add much to my story but they give me a sense of global history which justifies the concept of my book and inspires me to continue my work.