Short description: Mythical lion beast in Persian folklore
Manticor or "Martigora".―Johannes Jonston (1650) Historiae Naturalis Copperplate engraving by Matthäus Merian. Courtesy of The Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering & Technology[1][2]
The manticore or mantichore (Latin: mantichora; reconstructed Old Persian: *martyahvārah; Modern Persian: مردخوار mardkhor) is a Persianlegendary creature similar to the Egyptian sphinx that proliferated in western European medieval art as well. It has the head of a human, the body of a lion and the tail of a scorpion or a tail of venomous spines similar to porcupine 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.
The term "manticore" descends via Latin mantichora from Ancient Greekμαρτιχόρας (martikhórās)[3] This in turn is a transliteration of an Old Persian compound word consisting of martīya 'man' and xuar- stem, 'to eat' (Mod. Persian: مرد; mard + خوردن; khordan),[4][lower-alpha 1][5][6] i.e. man-eater.
The ultimate source of manticore was Ctesias, Greek physician of the Persian court during the Achaemenid dynasty, and is based on the testimonies of his Persian-speaking informants who had travelled to India. Ctesias himself wrote that the martichora (μαρτιχόρα) was its name in Persian, which translated into Greek as androphagon[7] or anthropophagon (ἀνθρωποφάγον),[8] i.e., "man-eater".[9][3][lower-alpha 2] But the name was mistranscribed as 'mantichoras' in a faulty copy of Aristotle, through whose works the notion of the manticore was perpetuated across Europe.[11]
Ctesias was also later cited by Pausanias regarding the martichoras or androphagos of India.[12]
Classical literature
An account of the manticore was given in Ctesias's lost book Indica ("India"), and circulated among Greek writers on natural history, but has survived only in fragments and epitomes preserved by later writers.[13]
Photius's Myriobiblon (or Bibliotheca, 9th century) serves as base text, but Aelian (De Natura Animalium, 3rd century) preserves the same information and more:
(Paraphrase) The martichora was allegedly a blue-eyed, human-faced wild beast of India. It was the size of the largest lion, with cinnabar-red fur. It has three rows of teeth, feet and claws like lions.[lower-alpha 3][lower-alpha 4] It also had a scorpion-like tail with a (main) terminal sting that measured over 1 cubit, plus two rows of auxiliary stings, each a Greek foot long. The sting was instantly fatal. The stings could be fired sideways, forward, or backward, by orienting the tail accordingly, up to a 1 plethron distance range, and these stings regenerated afterwards. Only the elephant was immune to the poison.[14][8] And it overcomes every beast except the lion.[7]
The beast's name means "maneater", as already noted.[14][7] Aelian citing Ctesias adds that the Mantichora prefers to hunt humans, lying in wait, taking down even 2, 3 men at a time. And the Indians take their young captive, disabling its tail by crushing it with stone before the growth of sting begins.[7]
Pliny's Aethiopian beasts
Pliny described the "mantichora" in his Naturalis Historia (c. 77 AD)[16] having relied on a faulty copy of Aristotle's natural history that contained the misspelling ("martikhoras").[11]
Pliny also introduced the confused notion that the manticore might occur in Africa, because he had discussed this and other creatures (such as the yale) within a passage on Aethiopia.[17][18][lower-alpha 5] But he also described the crocotta and the mantichora of Aethiopia together, and while the crocotta imitated the voices of men[lower-alpha 6] the mantichora of Aethiopia too also mimicked human speech, on authority of Juba II,[20] with a voice like the pipe (panpipe, fistula) mixed with trumpet.[15]
Legacy
Ctesias purportedly saw a martichora presented to the Persian king by the Indians.[7] The Romanised Greek Pausanias was skeptical and considered it an unreliable exaggerated account of a tiger.[12][11]Apollonius of Tyana also dismissed the mantichore as a tall tale, according to the biography by Philostratus (c. 170–247).[21][22]
Pliny did not share Pausanias' skepticism.[11] And for 1500 years afterwards, it was Pliny's account, also copied by Solinus (2nd century), which was held to be authoritative on matters of natural history whether real or mythological.[11] In the advent of Christianity, writings in the Holy Scripture combined with Plinian-Aristotelian learning gave rise to the Physiologus (also c. 2nd century), which later evolved into the medieval bestiaries[11] some of which contained entries on the manticore.
Manticore from the Rochester Bestiary (c. 1230–1240)
Manticore in the bestiary bound in a theological miscellany, British Library Harley MS 3244, ff 36r–71v (early 13th century)
Manticore in BnF Latin 6838 B, fo.010r
The manticore has been included in some medieval bestiaries, with accompanying illustrations, though not all.
The thick-maned (and long-bearded) manticore wearing a Phrygian cap is a commonplace design (fig., top left).[25]
In most instances, the manticora is "coloured red or brown and has clawed feet".[26] Artists took the liberty of coloring the manticore blue at times.[27] One example is depicted "as a long-haired blond" (fig., top right).[29] Another has the face of a woman and the body of a blue manticore (fig., bottom right) .[31]
Most manuscripts do not bother detailing the scorpion tail[32] and simply draw a long cat's tail,[26]
but in Harley MS 3244 the manticore has an "oddly pointed tail"[32] or an "extraordinary spike on the end" of it,[26] and a tail covered in spikes from end to end is shown on the manticore in several other second family manuscripts[36][26]
The three-rows of teeth are not faithfully represented except in some third family examples.[26]
Manuscripts and text
Second Family
The manticore (Latin: manticora) occurs in about half of the Second Family Latin bestiaries,[28] The specific source used in this case was probably Solinus (2nd century),[37][lower-alpha 7]
The text here describing the beast[39][40] differs little from Pliny's Latin version in language,[41] or the Greek version in content (paraphrased above).[42] This is naturally the case, since much of Solinus was recopied out of Pliny,[43][44] and the manticora is described as "bloody-colored" here[lower-alpha 4] rather than "red like cinnabar".[lower-alpha 3][lower-alpha 8]
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[40] (neither the broadest space nor the widest barrier can hinder it)".[39]
H text
Actually there are two candidate sources given for the passage, "Solinus 52.37" and "H iii.8";[45] this "H" being the pseudo-Hugh of Saint VictorDe bestiis et aliis rebus, edited by Migne,[46][47] but this source has been regarded circumspectly as the "problematic De bestiis et aliis rebus" by Clark.[48]
Transitional
The manticore also occurs in the earliest "Transitional" First Family bestiary (c. 1185),[lower-alpha 9][28][50] and some Third Family codices as well, whose illustrations attempted to reproduce some of the finer details given in its text.[26]
Confounding with other hybrid beasts
As aforementioned, the manticore is one of three hybrids from Aithiopia described together by Solinus,[51] appearing in (nearly) successive chapters of the bestiary.[52][lower-alpha 10] 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.
French mistransmission
The manticore is basically absent from the French bestiary of Pierre de Beauvais,[lower-alpha 11] 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[53]), which suggests manticore in name, but which is nothing like the standard manticore.[lower-alpha 12][54][lower-alpha 13] The name is thought to have arisen from misspellings of leucrocotta, compounded by the suffix replaced by -cora by scribal error.[55] Due to further mistransmission, "centicore" became the French misnomer for the yale (eale), a mythic antelope which should be a separate entry in the bestiaries.[57]
Neither manticore nor leucrotta (French: lucrote) appears in Philippe de Thaun's bestiary in Anglo-Norman verse.[58][59][lower-alpha 14]
Heraldry
Manticores in heraldry
Manticore/mantyger badge of William, Lord Hastings, c. 1470. This version has tusks.
A man-tyger (manticore), Mayster Ratliffe's banner
The likeness of manticore or similar creatures by other names have been used in heraldry, spanning from the late High Middle Ages into the modern period.
The manticore first appeared in English heraldry in c. 1470, as a badge of William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings; and in the 16th century.[60]
The manticore device was later used as a badge by Robert Radcliffe, 1st Earl of Sussex, and by Sir Anthony Babyngton.[60] Radcliffe's device was described as "3 mantygers argent" by one source, c. 1600.[61][5] Thus in heraldic discourse the term "manticore" became usurped by "mantyger" during the 17–18th centuries, and "mantiger" in the 19th.[5][lower-alpha 15]
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.[5] The Radcliffe family manticore appears to have human feet,[62] and (not so surprisingly), a chronicler described as a "Babyon" (baboon) the device by John Radcliffe (Lord Fitzwalter) accompanying Henry VIII into war in France.[64] It has also been speculated the Babyngton device is intendented to represent the "Babyon, or baboon, as a play upon his name", and it too also has characteristically "monkey-like feet".[65][lower-alpha 16]
The typical heraldic manticore is supposed to have not only the face of an old man, but spiraling horns as well,[5][62][67] although this is not really ascertainable in the Radcliffe family badge, where the purple manticore is wearing a yellow cap[63] (cap of dignity [62]).
Renaissance period
A manticore and a crocotta. Prepared for Felix Platter's Historiae animalium (1551–1558).
Woodcut from Edward Topsell's The Historie of Foure-footed Beastes (1607)[68][70]
Edward Topsell, in 1607, described the manticore as:
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, and I take it to bee the same Beast which Avicen calleth Marion, and Maricomorion, with her taile she woundeth her Hunters whether they come before her or behind her, and presently when the quils are cast forth, new ones grow up in their roome, wherewithal she overcommeth all the hunters: and although India be full of divers ravening beastes, yet none of them are stiled with a title of Andropophagi, that is to say, Men-eaters; except onely this Mantichora. When the Indians take a Whelp of this beast, they all to bruise the buttockes and taile thereof, that so it may never be fit to bring sharp quils, afterwards it is tamed without peril.[72][70]
Randle Holme drew on this description in 1688, when he described the manticore (which he regarded as distinct from the mantyger) as having:
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.[73]
Parallels
Gerald Brenan linked the manticore to the mantequero, a monster feeding on human fat in Andalusian folklore.[74]
The Hindu god Narasimha is often referred to as a Manticore. Narasimha, the man lion, is the fourth avatar of Vishnu and is described as having a man’s torso and the head and claws of a lion.
Manticore at the Church of St Mary and St David, Kilpeck, Herefordshire (12th century)
The heraldic manticore influenced some Mannerist representations of the sin of Fraud, conceived as a monstrous chimera with a beautiful woman's face – for example, in Bronzino's allegory Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time (National Gallery, London),[76] and more commonly in the decorative schemes called grotteschi (grotesque). From here it passed by way of Cesare Ripa's Iconologia into the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French conception of a sphinx.
Popular culture
In some modern depictions, such as in the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) and the card game Magic: The Gathering, manticores are depicted as having wings.[77] They are more specifically given "wings of a dragon" in the implementation of D&D′s 5th edition, according to the Monster Manual (2014),[lower-alpha 17][lower-alpha 18][79] though an earlier version of the manual described them as "batlike wings".[80]
Manticores are depicted in the animated series Adventure Time, most specifically the character “Tiny Manticore” who lives in Magic Man’s house.
It was claimed in a 1994 book that the manticore, with "bloodshot eyes", devours its prey whole, using its triple rows of teeth, leaving no traces of its victims (including bones) behind,[81] This behavior pattern has been incorporated into various fictional novels which appeared after this date.
Two manticores appear in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. They both have a lion head, dragon wings and a scorpion tail.
A manticore is the main antagonist of the concept album Tarkus by Emerson, Lake and Palmer and would be the name of the band's own record label Manticore Records in 1973 distributed by Atlantic Records plus the name of their rehearsal studio and film company which produced a documentary on their 1973 European Tour which aired on the Old Grey Whistle Test and the logo for Manticore Films depicted the manticore eating the name of the company before belching and turns around and smiles at the viewer before prancing off. 20 years later would name their 4-CD box set The Return of the Manticore.
A manticore appears in the Dark Souls DLC, Artorias of the Abyss, as the name "Sanctuary Guardian".
In the Ninja Sex Party discography the Manticore is described as an antagonistic being. Initially announced by Danny Sexbang, the vocalist, with his mythical features, the Manticore appears on stage productions and music videos as a humanoid being with a mask, teeth, ears and lion hand-paws. Still, the Manticore holds up to his antagonistic nature, taking delight in stalking and bringing misfortune to Danny.
The BBC 2010 Merlin season 3 episode 9 entitled "Love in the Time of Dragons" features a CGI animated manticore.
The song "Circus Maximus" off of the 2005 album Robot Hive/Exodus by the band Clutch mentions the "unholy stench of the manticore".
One of the playable characters in the video game Smite is Martichoras, an original character with the title “The Manticore King”.
In the 1995 James Bond film, GoldenEye, the film's female antagonist Xenia Onatopp lures an unsuspecting admiral onto her yacht moored in Monte Carlo harbour, called Manticore. Onboard, she crushes him to death during sex, allowing a hidden compatriot to steal his military credentials.
In the television series Citadel, the main adversary of the spy organisation for which the protagonists work is called “Manticore”.
A manticore is one of the three unique bosses featured in the mission-based runner mobile gameLara Croft, part of the larger Tomb Raider series.
The 2020 animated adventure film Onward features an anthropomorphic female manticore named Corey. Part bat, part lion, and part scorpion, she is a restaurant owner whom the main characters visit for help on their quest.
↑Early Middle Persianمارتیاmardya "man" (as in human) and خوارkhowr- "to eat"
↑That mantichora was otherwise known as martiora, "which in the Persian tongue signifieth a devourer of men" was already pointed out by Edward Topsell in 1607.[10] (for further information on Topsell's manticore, cf. infra.
↑Carl (Karl) Mayhoff (ed., 1857. Plinius Hist. Nat. viii.21., i.e.. Mayhoff ed. (1875), 8.21 (30) §75, p. 74) proposed an emendation of the text eosdem "the same" to apud Indos dein which would qualify the statements to be about India.
↑And considered to be based on the [laughing] hyena.[19]
↑In the base MS. Add. 11283, the manticore (fol. 8r) and the other hybrids around it has scholia marked "Solinus Cap. 65, p. 244".[38] 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).[49] Recognized in Badke's mss. containing the manticore.[50] 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 was Honorius Augustodunensis which derived from Pliny and Solinus.[53]
↑Standard manticore, i.e., such as described in the pseudo 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.[50]
↑Even though Badke lists Philippe de Thaun (MS Cotton Nero A V) as well as a manuscript of Image du Monde (the aforementioned testament to "centicore") as including manticore.[50]
↑Also, the term "mantegar" or "manteger" (var. "man tyger") meaning a "type of baboon" or ape emerged, first attested 1704 according to the OED. This name is also conjectured to derived from corruption of "manticore".[66]
↑Color illustration of the manticore by Jack Stella.[78]
↑Another embellished feature of this D&D version is that a "bristling mane stretches down [its] back".[79]
↑"Manticora" s.v., Eberhart, George M. Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology. Volume 1: A-M. ABC-Clio/Greenwood. 2002. p. 318. ISBN:1-57607-283-5
↑mantĭchō^ra. Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short. A Latin Dictionary on Perseus 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.[23] Both name Bodl. 764 as example.[24]
↑ 39.039.1Clark (2006). "XXIII De manticora/Chapter 23 Manticor", p. 139 (Latin text and English tr.). The base text is British Library MS 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" by Honorius, 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".[53]
↑As according to George C. Druce (1911) McCulloch explains that Gauthier (Gossouin de Metz), in his Image 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.[56]
↑Topsell, Edward (1607). The Historie of Foure-footed Beasts. London. p. 442., quoted from this edition (partly omitted in middle) by Diekstra (1998).[71]
↑Holme, Randle (1688). The Academy of Armorie and Blazon. Chester. p. 212.; quoted in Dennys 1975, p. 115.
↑Al Sur de Granada, pages 190-193, Gerald Brenan, 1997, Fábula - Tusquets Editores. Originally South from Granada, 1957
↑Dante Alighieri; Grandgent, C. H. (1933) (in it). La Divina commedia di Dante Alighieri. 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 Quarterly49 (2): 303–333. doi:10.2307/2863160. traces the chimeric image of Fraud backwards from Bronzino.