It is well known that in early Greek epic old age was something that could be scraped off a man, and it is the purpose of this note to explore the image and to suggest a possible origin. The idea is first attested in a counterfactual conditional sentence in Phoenix's speech at Il. 9.445–6: ‘nor even if [a god] himself were to undertake to render me young and flourishing after scraping off old age …’ (οὐδ' εἴ κέν μοι ὑποσταίη αὐτός | γῆρας ἀποξύσας θήσειν νέον ἡβώοντα …); in a description of Medea's magical rejuvenation of Aeson in the Nostoi (fr. 7.2 Bernabé = 6.2 Davies, γῆρας ἀποξύσας); and in the account of Eos' botched attempt to make Tithonus immortal in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (223–4):
Nor did lady Dawn think in her mind to ask for youth and to scrape off ruinous old age.
This language also occurs in Late Antiquity, and Andrew Faulkner in his commentary on the Hymn (ad loc.) cites Greg. Nanz. Carm. 1.2.2.483 (PG 37.616) in the fourth century a.d. and the much later Cometas, Anth. Pal. 15.37.2.Footnote 1 So far as the imagery implicit in these passages is concerned, S. D. Olson writes, ‘old age is imagined as a scurf or patina that can be scoured off a person’.Footnote 2 Faulkner, however, prefers a more precise reference: ‘Griffin … relates it to the idea of old age as a skin that can be shed, as that of a snake’, and he helpfully cites Theodoros Prodromos, Carmina historica 24.18, ἀπόξυσαι τὸ γῆρας ὥσπερ ὄϕις (‘to scrape off old age like a snake’).Footnote 3
It is not necessary, however, to wait until twelfth-century Byzantium to find explicit support for this understanding of τὸ γῆρας ἀπόξυσαι.Footnote 4 The use of γῆρας of a snake's slough points in this direction.Footnote 5 More interestingly, Nicander clearly links this characteristic of reptiles with human old age in his Theriaca, and on this point he seems to have been drawing on fifth-century sources, perhaps reflecting an ancient narrative tradition. In discussing the διψάς, a venomous snake (a viper, according to Antip. Sid. Anth. Pal. 7.172.5 = 316 Gow-Page HE) that leaves its victims suffering from unquenchable thirst, Nicander explains the nature of the snake by telling a ‘very ancient story’ (343, ὠγύγιος μῦθος):Footnote 6 at the beginning of his reign Zeus rewarded mortals for denouncing Prometheus with what appears to be perpetual youth. The foolish mortals, however, did not benefit from Zeus' generosity: in their laziness they entrusted their gift to an ass to bear, but, suffering from extreme thirst, the ass ran off and gave its burden to a snake. This is a moment of binding aetiology:
Ever since that time trailing reptiles cast off their aged skin, but grievous old age attends mortals.
The snake also acquired the terrible thirst suffered by the ass, and this accounts for the effects of its bite (described in detail by Lucan, 9.737–60). This passage provides a mythic explanation of the earlier description of the annual rejuvenation of the snake in spring (29–34):
… and where the grass at its first burgeoning brings green to the shady water-meadows, at the time when the snake sloughs the withered scales of age, moving feebly forward, when in spring he leaves his den, and his sight is dim; but a meal of the fennel's sappy shoots makes him swift and bright of eye.Footnote 8
As the snake emerges from its lair, it is clearly old, weakened in its movements (μῶλυς ἐπιστείβων) and sight (ὄμμασιν ἀμβλώσσει), but with the shedding of its skin and a meal of fennel fronds, it is young again.Footnote 9
Nicander's account of the fable is characteristically compressed. The scholiast (on 343–54 [p. 150.1 Crugnola]) offers a fuller version, adding that Zeus rewarded humankind with a remedy for old age (ϕάρμακον ἀγηρασίας) for informing on Prometheus for his theft of fire,Footnote 10 and that the snake was guarding a spring: the parched ass traded Zeus's gift for a drink at the snake's spring. The scholiast also records that the story was told in the Κωϕοί of Sophocles (fr. 362 Radt), and Aelian (NA 6.51 [1.162.29 Hercher]), who tells a similar tale, adds that the story was found in works by the Dorian comic poet Dinolochus (fr. 8 K.–A.), Ibycus (fr. 342 PMGF), Aristias (TGrF 9 F 8), Apollophanes (fr. 9 K.–A.), as well as Sophocles.Footnote 11 The latter's Κωϕοί was a satyr-play, and it is likely that Aristias also used the story in a satyr-drama.Footnote 12
Nicander's story has been seen as an account of humankind's loss of immortality,Footnote 13 but the details preserved suggest rather that this story concerns the loss of youth and the fact of old age in the human condition. In this light, these early humans were like Hesiod's Golden Race or Pindar's Hyperboreans, who were mortal but did not suffer the ravages of old age.Footnote 14 As the myth of Tithonus illustrates, immunity to age is in some ways more important than immortality. Although it does not occur in our Aesopic collections, this story with its prominent animal actors seems to belong to the tradition of the beast-fable, and is typical of stories attested as early as the classical period that are set in a formative age of humankind and account for various aspects of our nature. These sorts of tales are attested notably in Hesiodic poetry and comedy, but for the most part they seem to have formed part of a sub-literary tradition.Footnote 15 They are very likely to belong to an ancient strand of the poetic or narrative tradition – the tale may indeed be ὠγύγιοςFootnote 16 – but Homeric epic is careful to minimize folktale elements and avoids the beast-fable altogether.Footnote 17 Accordingly, phrases such as γῆρας ἀποξύσας stand in epic texts without elaboration.Footnote 18 We must be grateful to the Alexandrian poet Nicander for preserving the fable that seeks to explain the image.Footnote 19
