Hyperborea on Maps – Always to the North

Even if an almost entirely imaginary vision, the Hyperboreans remain the most productive and persistent Northern motif in ancient Greek literature. The Hyperboreans were thought to have traversed Greece during its mythical prehistory and to have left their mark on some of its innermost and sanctified places, thus helping to create, and sometimes to maintain, important values in Greek thought, such as justice, right, moral purity and religiosity. This study presents the roots of the Hyperborean myth, the main Hyperborean characters, Hyperborea’s location on maps according to ancient sources, the exploitation of the myth throughout the ages and some contemporary attempts to locate the Hyperborean lands.


Hyperborea
Compared with other legendary places in Antiquity the mythology of Hyperborea had a significant specificity for the Greeks. If the Elysian Fields, the final resting place of the souls, belonged to an unearthly world, and the once rich and powerful Atlantis had long ago sunk into the ocean, Hyperborea, on the contrary, was considered by many poets as a completely real, although extremely difficult to reach territory -"neither by ships nor on foot" (Pind. Pyth. 10.29).
Hyperborea was inhabited by people who lived in the far northern part of the known world, "beyond Boreas" (ὑπέρ Βορέᾱ) -beyond the North Wind. Despite its frigid location, Hyperborea was a sunny, temperate, divinely-blessed land, north of the Riphean Mountains and a favorite place of Apollo. The Hyperboreans founded Apollo's shrine at Delos and, according to Pausanias (10.5.8), at Delphi. They were portrayed as a fair, virtuous, creative people, with a social structure by poets, musicians and philosophers -an unattainable ideal for the Greeks. They were vegetarians (Cl. Alex. Stromata 1.15.72), holy people, experiencing no disease or war (Pind. Pyth. 10.40), lived to an extreme old age (Pliny 4.26). The godlike Hyperboreans seem to outshine the Greeks at every turn (Romm, 1992: 61). Hyperborea was an otherworldly paradise, a mythical utopia, which was both part of the mythical past and ever present in Greek literature (Bridgman, 2005: 3). 1 Arimaspea, composed in three books (Suda, s.v. Aristeas), remained for a long time the only detailed report of the further North for the rest of the Greek world and a rich new source about Hyperborea. It was widely known in the Archaic and Classical periods, especially among the worshipers of Apollo and continued to be read at least into the Imperial period. It disappeared before the founding of the Library of Alexandria, and therefore it is unlikely that any large passages from it can be found in papyri (Bolton, 1962: 20-38). The surviving fragments of Arimaspea do not mention the Hyperboreans, and are very small and few in number -the longest extant fragment consists of six lines quoted by Pseudo-Longinus in On the Sublime 10.4 (Bowra, 1956: 1). However, a number of borrowings from the poem are contained in the works of Pindar, Herodotus, Hellanicus, and possibly Hecataeus of Abdera, Alcman, Pliny, Aelian, Plautus, Ennius, Aeschylus (Bolton, 1962: 39-73). Arimaspea is probably to be dated in the middle third of the 7 th century BC (Phillips, 1955: 163); 615-595 BC (Dowden 2019); early-to-mid 6 th century (Gagné, 2021: 246). 2 Apollo has often been described as the "most Greek of the gods". His worship is spread throughout the Greek world, and pervades both the state and the private domain -theophoric names such as Apelles, Apollonios, Apollodorus, far from a few cities in Thrace, Illyria, Anatolia and Africa were named Apollonia. The diffusion of the Apollo cult is already complete at the time when our written sources begin, c. 700 BC. In the epics, Apollo is one of the most important gods. In spite of this, the impression remains that Apollo is not only a youthful god, but also a young god for the Greeks. There is no clear evidence for him in Linear B. On Delos, the real mistress of the sanctuary is Artemis; the earliest temple, constructed c. 700 BC, belongs to her; Apollo's temple lies at the periphery, though it did contain the monumental, gilded image. In Delphi, the central temenos always belonged to Apollo, but it was not founded before 750 BC. From the 5 th century BC onwards, Apollo began to be understood as a sun god (Burkert 1985: 143, 149). See also Graf (2008); cf. Gagné (2021: 139-149); Graf (2022).
When Apollo was born, Zeus outfitted him with a gold headband and lyre. He also gave him a chariot to drive -it was pulled by swans -and sent him to Delphi <and> to the Castalian waters to expound justice and law to the Greeks from there. But Apollo got on his chariot and ordered the swans to fly to the Hyperboreans. (Penella, 2007: 262) Nor are we at liberty to entertain any doubts as to the existence of this race [the Hyperboreans]; so many authors are there who assert that they were in the habit of sending their first-fruits to Delos to present them to Apollo, whom in especial they worship (Pliny 4.26).  Preserved inscriptions from the 4 th century BC record that the temple of Apollo on the island of Delos received gifts, apparently symbolical sacrificial offerings, from somebody referred to as the Hyperboreans (Sandin, 2018: 14;see Coupry, 1972). Herodotus (4.32-36) also depicts individual Hyperboreans in ancient times bearing gifts to the temple of Apollo -the Hyperborean maidens.

The Hyperborean maidens
The first two Hyperborean maidens were Arge and Opis, who "came with the gods" (Hdt. 4.35) -probably Apollo and Artemis (Leto and Eileithyia, according to Gagné, 2021: 118;cf. Sandin, 2014: 210), followed by Hyperoche and Laodice accompanied by five Hyperboreans to protect the girls on their dangerous trip. All maidens could not return home and died on Delos. 3 For that reason the Hyperboreans started sending gifts to the temple of Apollo on Delos not in person, but through intermediaries. 4 In 426 BC, a purification took place on Delos as a response to an oracle. All dead bodies in the area of the sanctuary, save those believed to be those of the Hyperborean maidens, were dug up and transported off the island, as the oracle had said there should be neither births nor deaths on Delos (Thuc. 1.8, 3.104; Diod. 12.58). The Hyperborean legend and the story of the Hyperborean maidens coming to Delos would seem to be a very strong and important myth for the Greeks to go against an oracle by leaving the graves of the Hyperborean maidens on the island while all others had to be removed (Bridgman, 2005: 39).

Abaris
The Hyperboreans appeared at key moments in the history of Ancient Greece, bringing innovations to its culture, revealing the mysteries of the universe, helping in time of need.
To the Greeks, Abaris was the most famous Hyperborean. He visited Greece to renew the good-will and kinship of his people to the Delians (Diod. 2.47) carrying (in later versions riding on) a mystical arrow, associated with Apollo. His legend developed throughout the centuries, but he seems always to have been regarded as a spiritual or magical authority (Plat. Charm. 158b; Heraclid. Pont. 73-75) and an ascetic (Hdt. 4.36); soon we hear of him as a seer and prophet (Lycurg. 14.5, Iambl. VP 138, 221).
Pindar (F 270) said, according to Harpocration (s.v. Abaris), that Abaris was a contemporary of king Croesus of Lydia (585-546 BC). If the lexicographer cites accurately, Abaris is then the Hyperborean individual mentioned first in known Greek sources, while at the same time being one of the youngest of the known Hyperboreans, belonging in the historical rather than mythical age. Herodotus (4.36) is the first to reveal concrete details of the legend, dismissing it as unworthy of his attention (cf. Gagné, 2020: 243): Thus, much then, and no more, concerning the Hyperboreans. As for the tale of Abaris, who is said to have been a Hyperborean, and to have gone with his arrow all round the world without once eating, I shall pass it by in silence. (Rawlinson 1910) Heraclides of Pontus (51c) enhanced the narrative and let Abaris fly upon the arrow, which incidentally turned aerobatics and the magical arrow into his defining attributes in late antiquity. Abaris is mentioned offhandedly in a slightly ironical tone as a Hyperborean with magical or pharmaceutical competence by Socrates in Plato's Charmides (158b), but the earliest source that seems to have more than a few lines of substance to offer is the speech Against Menesaechmus of Lycurgus (14.5), preserved in fragments. Abaris is here said to have come to Greece in order to seek help, as the Hyperboreans and the rest of the world were subject to plague or famine, and Apollo ordained that Athens must pray for all nations in order to abjure the disaster (Sandin, 2014: 206). 5 As a priest of Apollo in Hyperborea, Abaris organizes a worldwide collection of gold for the temple of the god in his country (Iambl. VP 91). 6 But he also brings his own offerings. He notably goes to Delos itself and reinstitutes the tribute. Sparta owed him its safety and cure from plague (Apollon. Mirab. 4; Lazova, 1993: 1;Graf, 2008: 39). He saved cities from storms and sickness, gave oracles, and healed. Abaris, in the service of Apollo, wrote down the oracles that he learned from Apollo, which are still known as the Oracles of Abaris (Gagné, 2021: 290, 369).

Hyperborean role in Delphi and Olympia. Further development of the myth
The Hyperborean role in the founding of the oracle of Apollo at Delos is undeniable. But according to Pausanias (10.5.7), a woman of the district of Delphi named Boeo wrote a Delphian hymn which said Hyperboreans led by the poet Olen are the founders of the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. 7 In a legend related by Pindar (Ol. 3) the Hyperboreans gave Heracles the sacred olive trees which later became the crown/wreath of victorious Olympic athletes (see Gagné, 2021: 4-24). Thus, the Hyperboreans might had a significant role to play in the founding of three important centers of Greek religion (Bridgman, 2005: 71;cf. Gagné, 2021: 83-200).
The Hyperborean myth and cult had changed radically over time in relation to what it had been in earlier Greek literary sources and early belief -Hyperborea became a contemporary political, social or philosophical aspect which was described to follow a certain school of thought or to criticize Greek society. 8 These stories of a northern paradise were grafted onto the original myth often to satisfy Alexandrian romantic tastes, especially during the 3 rd century BC. They also comprise Athenian propaganda which had as its goal the control of two major religious sanctuaries in the Greek world -Delos and Delphi (Bridgman, 2005: 44, 72).

Location of Hyperborea
Ancient Greeks believed a golden-age utopia had existed in the time of Cronus, before Zeus' lordship over their parallel mythical world, and that it continued to exist in such places as the land of the Hyperboreans located on the edges of the world known to the Greeks (Bridgman, 2005: 17). Hyperborea was believed to be beyond the snowy Riphean Mountains, with Pausanias (5.7.7) describing the location as "the land of the Hyperboreans, men living beyond the home of North Wind (Boreas)." Hesiod (WD 508), like Homer (Il. 9.5), placed Boreas in Thrace, perhaps in Mount Haemus, and therefore Hyperborea should have been north of Thrace. 9 In this archaic world picture, the northern horizon of the Greeks were the large mountain ranges -Thracian Rhodopes, Pangaion and Haemus (Podossinov, 2015(Podossinov, , 2019.  Gagné (2021: 187). For the difference between mythological traditions of Delos and Delphi and the eventual older Delphian origin of the Hyperborean myth see Daebritz (1914: 267); Bridgman (2005: 26). The archaic Greeks attached great importance to the centrality of Delphi, which they saw as the "navel of the earth" (Strabo, 9.3.6). 8 In the 5 th century BC Pindar's Hyperboreans are intentionally described as the exact opposites of the popular Scythian stereotype -"he seems deliberately to render his Hyperboreans as distinctly non-Scythian as possible; the intention of Pindar may have been to turn them into veritable anti-Scythians" (Sandin, 2018: 23, 27). In the Roman Empire during the 1 st century the geographer Pomponius Mela and the historian Pliny generated positive visions of Hyperborea that can be read as subtle criticism of Roman autocratic control (Webb, 2018: 48). 9 Boreas, the god of the North Wind, is Thracian by authoritative poetic tradition (Ibyc. 5.9). "Thracian" is attested as "northern" in (late) Greek (Sandin, 2014: 213). Hyperborea's location changed to accommodate changes in Greek geographical knowledge. It also appears to have been used in part to explain Greek territorial expansion and conquest by moving the Hyperborean homeland about Europe, Asia and western northern Africa, thereby pushing the edges of the world further afield as Greek colonization progressed, using the divine justification of Apollo as a basis (Bridgman, 2005: 71). 10 In his PhD thesis Timothy Bridgman published a map of the supposed location of Hyperborea according to ancient sources. Figure 6. Summary of ancient Hyperborean lands. Bridgman (2005: 22) In the Roman geographical tradition, the Riphean Mountains take their place steadily in the extreme north-east of Europe. Valerius Probus in the commentary to Vergil's Georgics (3.382) notes, that "some people took the Riphaean Mountains for the Alps. But the Riphean Mountains proper are in Scythia." The "Scythian" tradition was reproduced by Mela, Pliny, Solin, Julius Honorius, Paulus Orosius, other Latin authors and in this form was inherited in the Middle Ages (Podossinov, 2019b: 146). In the 1 st century the geographer Pomponius Mela (3.36) describes midnight sun and polar night -a distinctive phenomenon of the Arctic Circle: Тhe Hyperboreans are located beyond the north wind, above the Riphaean Mountains, and under the very pole of the stars, where the sun rises, not every day as it does for us, but for the first time at the vernal equinox, and where it eventually sets at the autumnal equinox. Therefore, for six months daylight is completely uninterrupted, and for the next six months night is completely uninterrupted.  Cram (1901: 572) For thirteen centuries, from 8 th century BC until 5 th century, many ancient people perceived Hyperborea as completely real and having significant impact on their lives. By the end of Antiquity, the former reverence for Hyperborea was replaced by skepticism and irony. In the Middle Ages, the subject of Hyperborea was almost completely marginalized in both public consciousness and scientific thought. One of the last mentions of Hyperborea is in the Byzantine encyclopedia Suda from 10 th century. Christianity has generated new interests, patterns, ideals and doctrines (Matveychev, 2017: 264;2018: 68). 11 The idea of the existence of the Riphean Mountains was revived during the Renaissance, when the rediscovery of Ptolemy's Geography in Europe prompted the emergence of the discipline of cartography. Тhe Riphean and Hyperborean Mountains started to emerge on 15 th and 16 th century maps as mobile markers of boundaries and "natural" demarcation lines of Europe's eastern territories. Ptolemy's Geography was translated from Greek into Latin in the early years of the 15 th century and enjoyed immediate success across Europe. In 1507 the Italian Celestine monk Marco Beneventano published his edition of Ptolemy's Geography, which included twenty-seven ancient maps depicting the Ptolemaic oikoumene, the inhabited world known to the Romans, next to six modern maps of newly discovered territories. Among the map's most prominent cartographic features are the Riphean Mountains, here called "Rissei Montes" (Piechocki, 2015: 77, 84).  Piechocki (2015: 85) In the 16 th century Hyperborea started appearing on maps as a northern continent. In 1569 Gerardus Mercator published his famous world map and insets of the Arctic region were separately published multiple time thereafter. In 1570 Abraham Ortelius published the first modern atlas of the world. In 1579 he began working on an inset map of the North Pole, as it can be imagined through the sources of Antiquity. Empirical evidence of the existence of the northern continent, however, was lacking, and by the middle of the 17 th century the Arctic continent had "melted away" on most maps. After Hyperborea was long forgotten by scientific thought, in the 16 th -18 th centuries interest in the Hyperborean theme began to awaken in some countries. This was the period of formation of national states. The notion of political interest connected with the international prestige of the state and with its historical rights to rule came to the fore. The elevation of its history to the most ancient, Hyperborean times was to serve as the strongest proof of the greatness of the nation and its "primogeniture" in world history. If the Italian Renaissance was marked by a search for ideals in the heritage of their great ancestors -the ancient Romans, then Northern European scholars were looking for ways to prove the historical superiority of their peoples over the Greeks and Romans. The "scientific Hyperborea" gained particular importance in Sweden, which sought to be able to justify not only its exceptional role in world history, but also its claim to a leading position in Europe (Matveychev, 2018: 69;: 83) -Olof Rudbeck (1679), professor of medicine, claimed that ancient Swedes were the same as ancient Hyperboreans (Roling, 2019: 263).
The supposed location of Hyperborea was moved to northern Central Asia by the French astronomer Jean Sylvain Bailly 12 (1775) and to the North Pole by the Swedish general and diplomat Magnus Björnstjerna (1843). 13 The latter theory was later also shared by the first president of Boston University William Warren (1885: 185) and the British academic John Bennett (1963). The assumptions about Hyperborea's location continue even today: north of Altai, Russia (Machinsky, 1997); Serbia (Vasić, 1932, Budimir, 1969refer to Palavestra, 2016); Poland (Chochorowski, 2020).
Despite all speculations Hyperborea remains a legitimate subject of scientific interest in historiography, archeology and linguistics, although it often acts as a suitable ground for the cultivation of various racial and nationalist theories, ideologies and pseudoscientific doctrines (Palavestra, 2016: 121). 14

Conclusion
Even if an almost entirely imaginary vision, the Hyperboreans remain the most productive and persistent Northern motif in ancient Greek literature, embodying as it were the canonical North of Greek myth (Sandin, 2018: 14). The Hyperboreans were thought to have traversed Greece during its mythical prehistory and to have left their mark on some of its innermost and sanctified places (Romm, 1992: 61), thus helping to create, and sometimes to maintain, important values in Greek thought, such as justice, right, moral purity and religiosity (Bridgman, 2005: 71). They were unreachable by land or sea and most stories of travel to and fro involve flight -flying chariots. "There is something otherworldly as well as northerly about their land" (Ahl, 1982: 378). Pliny (4.26) insists that we are not "at liberty to entertain any doubts as to the existence of this race", which lived in a mythical golden-age utopian setting, halfway between the realm of the gods and that of humankind (Bridgman, 2005: 64). All of this makes Hyperborea one of the most interesting and mysterious aspects in the history of the ancient world. But Pindar's account (Pyth. 10.40) that the Hyperboreans live "without toil or battles" hints to the fact that they are in fact a peace-loving society, which understands that salvation of mankind is possible only through knowledge, wisdom, and self-improvement -an achievement of an evolved culture, and a hope for a humane future.