#PHOENIX BIRD REAL TRIAL#

His contemporary Lactantius is probably the author who wrote the longest poem on the famous bird (go here). note His account is clearly inspired by Garuda, the bird of the Indian god Vishnu. In his Life of Apollonius, the Greek author Philostratus refers to the phoenix as a bird living in India, but sometimes migrating to Egypt. note After this, it was easy for the first Christians to make the beautiful bird the symbol of the resurrection, note and the authors of Late Antiquity continued to write about this animal. One generation later, the poet Martial used the phoenix as symbol of Rome's eternity. note Quoting Lucius Manilius, Pliny says that the bird dies on a nest of cinnamon and similar herbs, and that a new phoenix is born from the bones of the dead bird. note During the reign of Claudius, a phoenix was brought to Rome, but the Roman author Pliny the Elder says that it was probably not a real phoenix. The Roman author Tacitus mentions an appearance of the phoenix in 34 CE. note Apamea, Church, Mosaic of Adam and the Phoenix Went striding forth with rapid step apace. Was furnished round with tresses saffron-hued Its legs were red like ochre, and its neck Its breast appeared deep-dyed with purple's shade, 'twas near in scope to twice the eagle's size, For example, the Jewish author of 3 Baruch refers to the bird, and the Jewish playwright Ezekiel (second century BCE) mentions the phoenix in his play about Moses.įull wondrous, such as man has never seen The animal was well-known to other people. This is the Greek myth that became most popular in our own time we can still say that something rises 'like a phoenix from the flames'. Later sources tell us that the phoenix burned itself, and was born again from the flames.

#PHOENIX BIRD REAL TRIAL#

He forms first an egg of myrrh as large as he is able to carry, and then he makes trial of carrying it, and when he has made trial sufficiently, then he hollows out the egg and places his father within it and plasters over with other myrrh that part of the egg where he hollowed it out to put his father in, and when his father is laid in it, it proves (they say) to be of the same weight as it was and after he has plastered it up, he conveys the whole to Egypt to the temple of the Sun. Setting forth from Arabia he conveys his father, they say, to the temple of the Sun plastered up in myrrh, and buries him in the temple of the Sun. This bird, they say (but I cannot believe the story), contrives as follows. They say that he comes regularly when his father dies and if he be like the painting, he is of this size and nature, that is to say, some of his feathers are of gold color and others red, and in outline and size he is as nearly as possible like an eagle. There is also another sacred bird called the phoenix, which I did not myself see except in painting, for in truth he comes to the Egyptians very rarely, at intervals, as the people of Heliopolis say, of five hundred years. His story is probably based on a description by Hecataeus of Miletus. The next step in the development of the myth can be found in the Histories of the Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus, who again stresses the element of longevity. The first Greek known to have mentioned the phoenix ('the 'brilliant one'), was the poet Hesiod (c.700 BCE), who in The precepts of Chiron stresses the phoenix's longevity of almost 100,000 years.Ī chattering crow lives out nine generations of aged men,Īnd a raven's life makes three stags old,

Indeed, the temple of the benu was well-known for its time-keeping devices ( clepsydrae) and the priest who was responsible for the calendar. The benu had sprung from the god's heart.īecause the bird was thus associated with creation and renewal, it was easily connected with the calendar. In another myth, the famous bird was associated with the god Osiris, who had once renewed itself. The priests showed this pillar to visitors, who considered this the most holy place on earth. It had rested on a pillar that was known as the bnbn-stone. The benu was especially venerated in the town that is usually called Heliopolis ('city of the Sun').Īccording to the Heliopolitan myth, the benu had created itself from a fire that was burned on the holy jšd-tree in one of the sacred precincts of the temple of Ra.

Therefore this bird, sometimes called 'the ascending one', was associated with the sun god Ra, whose ba (soul) it was thought to be. During the flood of the Nile, this beautiful, bluish bird rests on high places and resembles the sun floating over the waters.

In Egyptian mythology, the bird benu (or purple heron) played an important role. The Egyptian mythology and its Greek interpretations must be distinguished.

Phoenix bird real