Alexander of Abonoteichus - Biography

Biography

Not much is known about the early life of Alexander. He apparently worked in travelling medicine shows around Greece and might have been a prophet of the goddess Soi or a follower of Apollonius of Tyana. In Lucian, his partner in profession is given as one Cocconas of Byzantium. After a period of instruction in medicine by a doctor who also, according to Lucian, was an impostor, in about 150 CE he established an oracle of Aesculapius at his native town of Abonoteichus (femin.: Ἀβωνότειχος; later Ionopolis), on the Euxine, where he gained riches and great prestige by professing to heal the sick and reveal the future.

Sometime before 160 CE Alexander formed a cult around the worship of a new snake-god, Glycon, and headquartered it in Abonoteichos. Having circulated a prophecy that the son of Apollo was to be born again, he contrived that there should be found in the foundations of the temple to Aesculapius, then in course of construction at Aboniteichos, an egg in which a small live snake had been placed. In an age of superstition no people had so great a reputation for credulity as the Paphlagonians, and Alexander had little difficulty in convincing them of the second coming of the god under the name of Glycon. A large tame snake with a false human head, wound round Alexander's body as he sat in a shrine in the temple, gave "autophones", or oracles unasked. The numerous questions asked of the oracle were answered by Alexander in metrical predictions. In his most prosperous year he is said to have delivered nearly 80,000 replies, concerning bodily, mental, and social afflictions, for each of which he received a drachma and two oboli.

Alexander did more than combine healing instructions with the oracle, which was not uncommon at the time, but also instituted mysteries like those of Eleusis. Through the cult Alexander achieved a certain level of political influence - his daughter married the governor of the Roman province of Asia. He found believers from Pontus to Rome through pretended arts of soothsaying and magic and was revered and consulted as a prophet by many notable individuals of his age. During the plague of 166 a verse from the oracle was used as an amulet and was inscribed over the doors of houses as a protection, and an oracle was sent, at Marcus Aurelius' request, by Alexander to the Roman army on the Danube during the war with the Marcomanni, declaring that victory would follow on the throwing of two lions alive into the river. The result was a great disaster, and Alexander had recourse to the old quibble of the Delphic oracle to Croesus for an explanation.

His main opponents were Epicureans and Christians. Lucian's account of Alexander represents the Christians—along with the Epicureans—as the special enemies and as the principal objects of his hate: Epicureans had too little religion or superstition to give in to a religious pretender; and the Christian faith was too deep-rooted to dream of any communion with Alexander.

Lucian's own close investigations into Alexander's methods of fraud led to a serious attempt on his life. The whole account gives a graphic description of the inner working of one among the many new oracles that were springing up at this period. Alexander had remarkable beauty and the striking personality of the successful charlatan, and must have been a man of considerable intellectual abilities and power of organization. His usual methods were those of the numerous oracle-mongers of the time, of which Lucian gives a detailed account: the opening of sealed inquiries by heated needles, a neat plan of forging broken seals, and the giving of vague or meaningless replies to difficult questions, coupled with a lucrative blackmailing of those whose inquiries were compromising.

Alexander died of gangrene of the leg in his seventieth year.