―Johannes Jonston (1650)Historiae Naturalis Copperplate engraving byMatthäus Merian. Courtesy of The Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering & Technology[1][2]
Themanticore ormantichore (Latin:mantichorās; reconstructedOld Persian:*martyahvārah; ModernPersian:مردخوارmard-khar) is alegendary creature from ancientPersian mythology, similar to the Egyptiansphinx that proliferated in Western European medieval art as well. It has the face of a human, the body of alion, and the tail of ascorpion or a tail covered in venomous spines similar toporcupine quills. There are some accounts that the spines can be launched like arrows. It eats its victims whole, using its three rows of teeth, and leaves no bones behind. Other accounts also have it sporting the wings of adragon.
The ultimate source ofmanticore wasCtesias, Greek physician of the Persian court during theAchaemenid dynasty, and is based on the testimonies of his Persian-speaking informants who had travelled to India. Ctesias himself wrote that themartichora (μαρτιχόρα) was its name in Persian, which translated into Greek asandrophagon[9] oranthropophagon (ἀνθρωποφάγον),[10] i.e., "man-eater".[11][5][b] But the name was mistranscribed as 'mantichoras' in a faulty copy ofAristotle, through whose works the notion of the manticore was perpetuated across Europe.[13]
An account of the manticore was given in Ctesias's lost bookIndica ("India"), and circulated among Greek writers on natural history, but has survived only in fragments andepitomes preserved by later writers.[15]
(Paraphrase) The martichora was allegedly a blue-eyed, human-faced wild beast of India. It was the size of the largest lion, withcinnabar-red fur. It has three rows of teeth, feet and claws like lions.[c][d] It also had a scorpion-like tail with a (main) terminal sting that measured over 1cubit, plus two rows of auxiliary stings, each aGreek foot long. The sting was instantly fatal. The stings could be fired sideways, forward, or backward, by orienting the tail accordingly, up to a 1plethron distance range, and these stings regenerated afterwards. Only the elephant was immune to the poison.[16][10] And it overcomes every beast except the lion.[9]
[16][9] Aelian, citing Ctesias, adds that the Mantichora prefers to hunt humans, lying in wait and even taking down even two or three men at a time. The Indians, he continues, take the young captive and disable the tail by crushing it with a stone before the sting begins growing.[9]
Pliny described the "mantichora" in hisNaturalis Historia (c. 77 AD)[17] having relied on a faulty copy ofAristotle's natural history that contained the misspelling ("martikhoras").[13]
Pliny also introduced the confused notion that the manticore might occur in Africa, because he had discussed this and other creatures (such as theyale) within a passage onAethiopia.[18][19][e] But he also described thecrocotta and the mantichora of Aethiopia together, and while the crocotta imitated the voices of men[f] the mantichora of Aethiopia too also mimicked human speech, on authority ofJuba II,[21] with a voice like the pipe (panpipe,fistula) mixed with trumpet.[22]
Ctesias purportedly saw a martichora presented to the Persian king by the Indians.[9] The Romanised GreekPausanias was skeptical and considered it an unreliable exaggerated account of atiger.[14][13]Apollonius of Tyana also dismissed the mantichore as a tall tale, according to the biography byPhilostratus (c. 170–247).[23][24]
Pliny did not share Pausanias' skepticism.[13] And for 1500 years afterwards, it was Pliny's account, also copied bySolinus (2nd century), which was held to be authoritative on matters of natural history whether real or mythological.[13] In the advent of Christianity, writings in the Holy Scripture combined with Plinian-Aristotelian learning gave rise to thePhysiologus (also c. 2nd century), which later evolved into the medievalbestiaries[13] some of which contained entries on the manticore.
The manticore has been included in some medievalbestiaries, with accompanying illustrations, though not all.
The thick-maned (and long-bearded) manticore wearing aPhrygian cap is a commonplace design (fig., top left).[27]
In most instances, the manticora is "coloured red or brown and has clawed feet".[28] Artists took the liberty of coloring the manticore blue at times.[29] One example is depicted "as a long-haired blond" (fig., top right).[31] Another has the face of a woman and the body of a blue manticore (fig., bottom right) .[33]
Most manuscripts do not bother detailing the scorpion tail[34] and simply draw a long cat's tail,[28]but in Harley MS 3244 the manticore has an "oddly pointed tail"[34] or an "extraordinary spike on the end" of it,[28] and a tail covered in spikes from end to end is shown on the manticore in several othersecond family manuscripts.[38][28]
The three-rows of teeth are not faithfully represented except in some third family examples.[28]
The manticore (Latin:manticora) occurs in about half of the Second Family Latin bestiaries.[30] The specific source used in this case was probably Solinus (2nd century),[39][g]
The text here describing the beast[41][42] differs little from Pliny's Latin version in language,[43] or the Greek version in content (paraphrased above).[44] This is naturally the case, since much of Solinus was recopied out of Pliny.[45][46] The manticora is here described as "bloody-colored"[d] rather than "red like cinnabar".[c][h]
The text concludes by stating that the manticore "seeks human flesh, is active, and leaps so that neither large spaces nor broad obstacles can delay it[42] (neither the broadest space nor the widest barrier can hinder it)".[41]
H text
Actually there are two candidate sources given for the passage, "Solinus 52.37" and "H iii.8";[47] this "H" being the pseudo-Hugh of Saint VictorDe bestiis et aliis rebus, edited by Migne,[48][49] but this source has been regarded circumspectly as the "problematicDe bestiis et aliis rebus" by Clark.[50]
Transitional
The manticore also occurs in the earliest "Transitional" First Family bestiary (c. 1185),[i][30][52] and some Third Family codices as well, whose illustrations attempted to reproduce some of the finer details given in its text.[28]
As aforementioned, the manticore is one of three hybrids from Aithiopia described together by Solinus,[53] appearing in (nearly) successive chapters of the bestiary.[54][j] This created the groundwork for the beasts in adjacent chapters being confounded or amalgamated through scribal errors, as described below in the cases of bestiaries produced in France.
The manticore is basically absent from the French bestiary of Pierre de Beauvais,[k] which exist in the short versions of 38 or 39 chapters, and the long version of 71 chapters. Instead, there is a Chapter 44 on the "centicore" (or santicora, var. ceucrocata[55]), which suggests manticore in name, but which is nothing like the standard manticore.[l][56][m] The name is thought to have arisen from misspellings of leucrocotta, compounded by the suffix replaced by -cora by scribal error.[57] Due to further mistransmission, "centicore" became the French misnomer for theyale (eale), a mythic antelope which should be a separate entry in the bestiaries.[59]
bred among the Indians, having a treble rowe of teeth beneath and above, whose greatnesse, roughnesse, and feete are like a Lyons, his face and eares like unto a mans, his eies grey, and collour red, his taile like the taile of a Scorpion of the earth, armed with a sting, casting forth sharp pointed quills, his voice like the voice of a small trumpet or pipe, being in course as swift as a Hart; His wildnes such as can never be tamed, and his appetite is especially to the flesh of man. His body like the body of a Lyon, being very apt both to leape and to run, so as no distance or space doth hinder him,..[66][64]
Topsell thought the manticore was described by other names elsewhere. He thought that it was the "same Beast whichAvicen callethMarion, andMaricomorion" and also, the same as the "Leucrocuta, about the bigness of awilde Ass, being in legs and Hoofs like aHart, having his mouth reaching on both sides to his ears, and the head and face of a female like unto aBadgers".[64][12]
And Topsell wrote that in India they would "bruise the buttockes and taile" of the whelp or cub they captured, causing it to be incapable of using its quills, thus removing the danger.[64] This differs somewhat from the original sources which stated that they would crush the tail with stone to make them useless.
A man-tyger (manticore), Lord Fitzwater's (Radcliffe's) banner.[67]
The likeness of manticore or similar creatures by another name (i.e.mantyger) have been used in heraldry, spanning from the lateHigh Middle Ages into the modern period.
The mantyger is glossed as merely a variant reading of manticore in theOED,[68] though the 17th century heraldry collectorRandle Holme made a fine distinction between manticore and mantyger. Holme's description of the manticore seems to derive directly from naturalist Edward Topsell (cf. above),
[The manticore has] the face of a man, the mouth open to the ears with a treble row of teeth beneath and above; long neck, whose greatness, roughness, body and feet are like a Lyon: of a red colour, his tail like the tail of a Scorpion of the Earth, the end armed with a sting, casting forth sharp pointed quills.[69]
while he describes the mantyger as having
the face and ears of a man, the body of a Tyger, and whole footed like Goose or Dragon; yet others make it with feet like a Tyger,
etc., and also noting that they may be horned or unhorned.[70]
The mantyger device was later used as a badge byRobert Radcliffe, 1st Earl of Sussex, and by SirAnthony Babyngton.[71] The Radford[e]'s device was described as "3 mantygers argent" by one source, c. 1600.[72][7] Thus in heraldic discourse the term "manticore" became usurped by "mantyger" during the 17–18th centuries, and "mantiger" in the 19th.[7][o]
It is noted that the manticore/mantiger of heraldic devices has a beast of prey body as standard, but sometimes chosen to be given dragon feet.[7] The Radcliffe family manticore appears to have human feet,[73] and (not so surprisingly), a chronicler described as a "Babyon" (baboon) the device by John Radcliffe (Lord Fitzwater) accompanying Henry VIII into war in France.[74] It has also been speculated the Babyngton device is intended to represent the "Babyon, or baboon, as a play upon his name", and it too also has characteristically "monkey-like feet".[75][p]
The typical heraldic manticore is supposed to have not only the face of an old man, but spiraling horns as well,[7][73][77] although this is not really ascertainable in the Radcliffe family badge, where the purple manticore is wearing a yellow cap[67] (cap of dignity[73]).
The Hindu godNarasimha is often referred to as a Manticore. Narasimha, the man lion, is the fourth avatar ofVishnu and is described as having a man’s torso and the head and claws of a lion.
Dante Alighieri, in hisInferno, depicted the mythicalGeryon as having a similar appearance to a manticore, following Pliny's description where it has the face of an honest man, the body of awyvern, the paws of a lion, and the stinger of a scorpion at the end of its tail.[79]
The heraldic manticore influenced someMannerist representations of the sin of Fraud, conceived as a monstrouschimera with a beautiful woman's face – for example, inBronzino's allegoryVenus, Cupid, Folly and Time (National Gallery, London),[80] and more commonly in the decorative schemes calledgrotteschi (grotesque). From here it passed by way ofCesare Ripa'sIconologia into the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French conception of asphinx.
In some modern depictions, such as in thetabletop role-playing gameDungeons & Dragons (D&D) and the card gameMagic: The Gathering, manticores are depicted as having wings.[81] They are more specifically given "wings of a dragon" in the implementation ofD&D′s 5th edition, according to theMonster Manual (2014),[q][r][83] though an earlier version of the manual described them as "batlike wings".[84]
In the animatedsitcom television seriesKrapopolis, the character of Shlub is depicted as a "mantitaur" which is a half-centaur, half-manticore creature where he was the result of a union between a female centaur and a male manticore. In this show besides the fact that the manticores are depicted with dragon-like wings like other depictions of them, the manticores are shown to have dragon-like horns on their head.[85]
^EarlyMiddle Persianمارتیاmardya "man" (as in human) andخوارkhowr- "to eat"
^Thatmantichora was otherwise known asmartiora, "which in the Persian tongue signifieth a devourer of men" was already pointed out byEdward Topsell in 1607.[12] (for further information on Topsell's manticore, cf.infra.
^Carl (Karl) Mayhoff (ed., 1857. PliniusHist. Nat. viii.21., i.e..Mayhoff ed. (1875), 8.21 (30) §75, p. 74) proposed an emendation of the texteosdem "the same" toapudIndosdein which would qualify the statements to be about India.
^And considered to be based on the [laughing]hyena.[20]
^In the base MS. Add. 11283, the manticore (fol. 8r) and the other hybrids around it has scholia marked "Solinus Cap. 65, p. 244".[40] But these are presumbly later scribal additions, not disclosure of source by the original creators.
^While McCulloch translates literally as "bluish eyes, a lion's body the color of blood", Clark gives the freer translation "green eyes, a russet color lion".
^Morgan Library, MS M.81 (The Worksop Bestiary)] (c. 1185).[51] Recognized in Badke's mss. containing the manticore.[52] Note it is not older than the early Second Family Additional MS 11283.
^XXII. De Cocodrillo (crocodile) intervenes (but this is probably not a hybrid).
^For Pierre de Beauvais's bestiary (in French), the probable direct source wasHonorius Augustodunensis which derived from Pliny and Solinus.[55]
^Standard manticore, i.e., such as described in thepseudo Hugo de St. Victor, McCulloch's so-called "H" text, cf. explanatory note,supra.
^At least in the Pierre mss. known in France. But the manticore is included in the Vatican codex of Pierre de Beauvais (longer version) according to Badke.[52]
^Even though Badke lists Philippe de Thaun (MS Cotton Nero A V) as well as a manuscript ofImage du Monde (the aforementioned testament to "centicore") as including manticore.[52]
^Related to the topic of the heraldic manticore/mantiger exhibiting "baboon" feet, it should be mentioned that there emerged a term "mantegar" meaning a "type of baboon", first attested in 1704.[76] This is also conjectured to derived from corruption of "manticore".[76] As a consequence, the term "mantyger" became an ambiguously variant of "manticore" or "mantegar",[68] after c. 1704, assuming that is the correct approximate dating when the word in that sense was coined.
^Color illustration of the manticore by Jack Stella.[82]
^Another embellished feature of this D&D version is that a "bristling mane stretches down [its] back".[83]
^"Manticora" s.v., Eberhart, George M.Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology. Volume 1: A-M. ABC-Clio/Greenwood. 2002. p. 318.ISBN1-57607-283-5
^mantĭchō^ra. Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short.A Latin Dictionary onPerseus Project. lists Plin. 8, 21, 30, § 75; 8, 30, 45, § 107. So the same passage may be designated variously as 8.21 (30), or 8.30 or 8.75 depending on the editor.
^Flavius Philostratus,The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, translated by F. C. Conybeare, volume I, book III. Chapter XLV, pp. 327–329.
And inasmuch as the following conversation also has been recorded by Damis as having been held upon this occasion with regard to the mythological animals and fountains and men met with in India, I must not leave it out, for there is much to be gained by neither believing nor yet disbelieving everything. Accordingly Apollonius asked the question, whether there was there an animal called the man-eater (martichoras); and Iarchas replied: "And what have you heard about the make of this animal? For it is probable that there is some account given of its shape." "There are," replied Apollonius, "tall stories current which I cannot believe; for they say that the creature has four feet, and that his head resembles that of a man, but that in size it is comparable to a lion; while the tail of this animal puts out hairs a cubit long and sharp as thorns, which it shoots like arrows at those who hunt it."
^McCulloch (1962), p. 142: "more usual is its depiction as a heavily maned beast having a man's face topped by a Phrygian cap ..";Wiedl (2010): "mid thirteenth-century Salisbury bestiary with its pointed Phrygian hat, long beard and grotesque profile", citing Higgs Strikland, Debra (2003)Saracens, Demons, & Jews, 136, figure 60 and pl.3; Pamela Gravestock, "Did Imaginary Animals Exist?,"The Mark of the Beast, p. 121.[25] Both name Bodl. 764 as example.[26]
^abClark (2006). "XXIII De manticora/Chapter 23 Manticor", p. 139 (Latin text and English tr.). The base text is British LibraryMS Add. 11283, dated to 1180s by Clark.
^Clark (2006), "XXI De leucrotar/Chapter 23 Manticor", p. 139; "XII De crocodrillo/Chapter 22 Crocodile", p. 140; "XXIII De manticora/Chapter 23 Manticor", p. 141; "XXIV De parandro/Chapter 24 Parandrus", p. 141.
^The "leucrocota" is given written "ceucocroca" byHonorius, aforementioned as Pierre de Beauvais's source. The ceu- being misread as "cen- in a manuscript" is "not improbable". "And doubtless the ending -ticora was the result of a scribe's attention dropping down a few lines in his source to the word manticora".[55]
^As according toGeorge C. Druce (1911) McCulloch explains thatGauthier (Gossouin de Metz), in hisImage du Monde gave the name "centicore", "leucrota", followed by a chapter on the yale but leaving out a name. This later caused a merge of "centicore" with description of the yale.[58]
^Topsell, Edward (1607).The Historie of Foure-footed Beasts. London. p. 442., quoted from this edition (partly omitted in middle) by Diekstra (1998).[65]
^Dante Alighieri; Grandgent, C. H. (1933).La Divina commedia di Dante Alighieri (in Italian). Boston; New York: D.C. Heath and Co.OCLC1026178.Dante's image was profoundly modified, however, by Pliny's description – followed by Solinus – of a strange beast called Mantichora (Historia Naturalis, VIII, 30) which has the face of a man, the body of a lion, and a tail ending in a sting like a scorpion's
^Moffitt, John F. (1996). "An Exemplary Humanist Hybrid: Vasari's "Fraude" with Reference to Bronzino's "Sphinx"".Renaissance Quarterly.49 (2):303–333.doi:10.2307/2863160.JSTOR2863160.S2CID192984544. traces the chimeric image of Fraud backwards from Bronzino.
^Gygax, Gary (1993).Monstrous Manual. TSR. p. 246.ISBN9781560766193.The manticore.. with a leonine torso and legs, batlike wings, am man's head, a tail tipped with iron spikes,.. stns 6 feet at the shoulder and meausres 15 feet in length. It has a 25-foot wingspan
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