Abaris the Hyperborean

Use in the book

Abaris belongs to the story of the charm, not to the argument about temperance. At Critias' suggestion Socrates has pretended to know a remedy for Charmides' heavy head in the mornings: a leaf, useless without the charm that goes with it (155b–e). He learned the charm, he says, "out there on campaign from one of the Thracian doctors of Zalmoxis, who are said even to make one immortal"; Zalmoxis, god of the Getae, a Thracian people of the lower Danube, is in the doctor's words "our king, who is a god" (156d). The Thracian taught that the soul is treated with charms, "and these charms are beautiful words"; from them temperance comes to be in souls, and no one is to have the remedy for his head who has not first handed over his soul to the charm (157a–c2). When Critias puts in that Charmides is thought "far and away the most temperate of anyone nowadays" (157d), Socrates, after praising the young man's family, sets out the two cases: "If temperance is already present in you, as Critias here says, and you are temperate enough, then you would have no further need of charms, whether of Zalmoxis or of Abaris the Hyperborean; the remedy for the head itself should be given you straightaway. But if you seem still to be lacking in these things, the charm must be sung before the remedy is given" (158b–c).

Abaris has no part in the Thracian's teaching, and Socrates claims nothing from him; naming him beside Zalmoxis widens the case, so that a temperate soul would need no charm, whether from Thrace or from beyond the North Wind. Socrates then hands the question to Charmides, "So tell me yourself" (158c), and the question whether temperance is in him soon becomes the question what temperance is (158e–159a).

Places to read

1. 158b–cIf temperance is already present in Charmides, he needs no charms of Zalmoxis or of Abaris and should have the remedy at once; if not, the charm comes before the remedy.

Translation in this edition

"Of Abaris the Hyperborean" renders Ἀβάριδος τοῦ Ὑπερβορέου; the repeated "of" in "whether of Zalmoxis or of Abaris" follows the Greek, which repeats the article with each name (οὔτε τῶν Ζαλμόξιδος οὔτε τῶν Ἀβάριδος). The epithet stays "Hyperborean" instead of being spelled out as "from beyond the North Wind", and ἐπῳδή is "charm" at every place in the dialogue.

Ἄβαρις

Attested: Ἀβάριδος (Abaridos; 158b). Abaris, the legendary Hyperborean whom Socrates names beside Zalmoxis as a source of charms that Charmides would not need if temperance were already present in him. Lemma: Ἄβαρις.

Ὑπερβόρεος

Attested: Ὑπερβορέου (Hyperboreou; 158b). Hyperborean, "beyond Boreas", the North Wind: belonging to the legendary people of the far north, as Abaris does. Lemma: Ὑπερβόρεος.

Other ancient sources

Herodotus, the historian of the fifth century BC, ends his account of the Hyperboreans by passing over the story: "I leave out the tale about Abaris, reputedly a Hyperborean, of how he went round the whole earth bearing the arrow and taking no food"; and if there are people beyond Boreas, the North Wind, he adds, there are also others beyond Notus, the South Wind.¹ Zalmoxis, whom the Greeks of the Hellespont made a former slave of Pythagoras, comes later in the same book (4.94–96), and Socrates' pairing of the two can be read as drawing on the same stock of northern tales. Later Pythagorean legend told much more of Abaris. Iamblichus, the Syrian Platonist of the early fourth century AD, makes him in his On the Pythagorean Life an old priest of the Hyperborean Apollo, who takes Pythagoras for the god himself and gives him the arrow on which he had crossed rivers, marshes and mountains, purifying cities and driving off plagues; Pythagoras shows him his golden thigh, in token that he was not mistaken, and teaches him to foresee by numbers instead of by sacrifices (90–93).² Iamblichus also records his byname, "air-walker", because he rode on the arrow over rivers and seas, and so does Porphyry, the Platonist of the third century AD, in his Life of Pythagoras.³ Herodotus' Abaris carries the arrow; the later Abaris is carried by it.