The Serpent Column and the talismanic ecologies of Byzantine Constantinople

Abstract

This study examines how the Serpent Column in Constantinople came to be recognized as a talisman against snakes and snakebites in the 1390s. It first gives a working definition of what a talisman was in Byzantium. It shows that, despite the co-existence of different ideas of what talismans were, they share the basic principle that the talisman acts within a broader network of non-human forces and entities. Second, it shows how contemporaries used this understanding of talismans when they began to recognize the Serpent Column as a talisman.

The science of talismans today

“…By treating the science of talismans, not as a discredited superstition but as a genuine field of intellectual activity, these studies participate in a broader shift in the study of the “occult sciences” (Collins, 2015; Saif & Leoni, 2021). The Greek sources remain harder to access, despite important recent studies (for the state of scholarship, see Griebeler, 2020, pp. 91–94).…”

“…Still new powers emerged, for example, at the Serpent Column in the Hippodrome (Figure 1). In the later fourteenth century, after standing in Constantinople for a millennium, it acquired efficacy against poisonous snakes (Griebeler, 2020). It too was discussed for centuries, and it too lost its power.…”