Sign in Subscribe
PodcastNotes

Inquires of our Reality - Introduction to the Plinian Races

What follows is a few references and sources that describe what some scholars refer to as the “Plinian Races.” St. Augustine referred to them as the monstrous races, and they were prolific in literature and visual art around the world.

Seth Vandebrooke

• 7 min read
Inquires of our Reality - Introduction to the Plinian Races
Psalter World Map and Nuremberg Chronicle

What follows is a few references and sources that describe what some scholars refer to as the “Plinian Races.” St. Augustine referred to them as the monstrous races, and they were prolific in literature and visual art around the world. Given that many of these races can be explained as hereditary congenital deformities, it’s possible that the more fantastic sounding creatures might have more validity than one might expect.

Scholarly Overview

The Routledge Handbook of Identity and the Environmental, Part 3, Chapter 21, Page 374
"The tradition of monstrous races inhabiting far-flung regions of the oikoumenē, mentioned by Hesiod and Herodotus, was enriched as it was transmitted from Scylax of Caryanda, Ctesias of Cnidus, Megasthenes, stories of Alexander’s exploits in India, Pliny, Pomponius Mela, and Solinus. India was particularly prone to harbor fantastic races such as Cynocephali, Sciapodes, Monophthalmoi (one-eyed), and many others. Skeptics dismissed these accounts as fantasies, produced by authors seeking novelty. Others thought that monstrous races were in fact animals which only superficially resembled humans, or that accounts of these races were based on real qualities of human tribes, distorted through literary license. Finally, the authors who admitted the possibility that these hybrid human creatures existed usually attributed their origins to the effect of climate, which was believed to have a great influence on physical and mental formation and which was thought to be extreme in peripheral regions of the oikoumenē. The composite beings were sometimes seen as jests of nature, ludibria naturae, or as nature’s mistakes. Although the same terms are used to describe both monstrous races and monstrous individual births, it is somewhat difficult to gauge if the processes that cause them to occur are believed to be similar. Indeed, most ethnographic writers had little interest in explaining the origins of the monstrous races."

Pliny the Elder

The Natural History. Book 7, Chapter 2
We have already stated, that there are certain tribes of the Scythians, and, indeed, many other nations, which feed upon human flesh. This fact itself might, perhaps, appear incredible, did we not recollect, that in the very centre of the earth, in Italy and Sicily, nations formerly existed with these monstrous propensities, the Cyclopes, and the Læstrygones, for example; and that, very recently, on the other side of the Alps, it was the custom to offer human sacrifices, after the manner of those nations; and the difference is but small between sacrificing human beings and eating them.
The Natural History. Book 7, Chapter 2
According to the ac- count of Megasthenes, dwelling upon a mountain called Nulo, there is a race of men who have their feet turned backwards,39 with eight toes on each foot.40

On many of the mountains again, there is a tribe of men who have the heads of dogs,41 and clothe themselves with the skins of wild beasts. Instead of speaking, they bark; and, furnished with claws, they live by hunting and catching birds. According to the story, as given by Ctesias, the number of these people is more than a hundred and twenty thousand: and the same author tells us, that there is a certain race in India, of which the females are pregnant once only in the course of their lives, and that the hair of the children becomes white the instant they are born. He speaks also of another race of men, who are known as Monocoli,42 who have only one leg, but are able to leap with surprising agility.43 The same people are also called Sciapodæ,:44 because they are in the habit of lying on their backs, during the time of the extreme heat, and protect themselves from the sun by the shade of their feet.

Sources Pliny References:

  • Herodotus
  • Aristeas of Proconnesus
  • Aristotle
  • Cicero
  • Ctesias
  • Megasthenes
  • Clitarchus
  • Homer
  • Damon
  • Phylarchus
  • Isigonus
  • Nymphodorus
  • Crates of Pergamus
  • Apollonides
  • Calliphanes
  • Tauron

Many of the Plinian races are recognized today as rare congenital deformities (polydactyly, polycoira, bilateral tibial hemimelia), some of which are possessed by the Nephilim's descendants according to Scripture (1 Chronicles 20), extra-biblical texts, as well as both secular and ecclesiastical scholars.

  • Læstrygonians → Giantism
  • Cyclopes → Cyclopia + Giantism
  • Bythiae and Thibii → Polycoira
  • Backwards feet/legs → Bilateral Tibial Hemimelia
  • Eight toes on each foot → Polydactyly
  • Androgyni → Hermaphroditism
  • Sciapodæ → Amelia

If these conditions are real, what else that Pliny mentioned was real?

Herodotus

Herodotus, The Histories, Book 4, chapter 191
Herodotus: The Histories. Book 4, Melpomene. 191 In that country are the huge snakes and the lions, and the elephants and bears and asps, the horned asses, the dog-headed and the headless men that have their eyes in their chests, as the Libyans say, and the wild men and women, besides many other creatures not fabulous.

Augustine of Hippo

Philip Schaff: NPNF1-02. St. Augustine’s City of God and Christian Doctrine - Christian Classics Ethereal Library
NPNF (V1-02)
"It is also asked whether we are to believe that certain monstrous races of men, spoken of in secular history, have sprung from Noah’s sons, or rather, I should say, from that one man from whom they themselves were descended. For it is reported that some have one eye in the middle of the forehead; some, feet turned backwards from the heel; some, a double sex, the right breast like a man, the left like a woman, and that they alternately beget and bring forth: others are said to have no mouth, and to breathe only through the nostrils; others are but a cubit high, and are therefore called by the Greeks “Pigmies:” they say that in some places the women conceive in their fifth year, and do not live beyond their eighth. So, too, they tell of a race who have two feet but only one leg, and are of marvellous swiftness, though they do not bend the knee: they are called Skiopodes, because in the hot weather they lie down on their backs and shade themselves with their feet. Others are said to have no head, and their eyes in their shoulders; and other human or quasi-human races are depicted in mosaic in the harbor esplanade of Carthage, on the faith of histories of rarities. What shall I say of the Cynocephali, whose dog-like head and barking proclaim them beasts rather than men? But we are not bound to believe all we hear of these monstrosities."
"Accordingly, it ought not to seem absurd to us, that as in individual races there are monstrous births, so in the whole race there are monstrous races."

The Nuremburg Chronicle

Treasures of the Library : Nuremberg Chronicle
The Liber Chronicarum by Hartmann Schedel printed in Nuremberg by Anton Koberger in 1493, or Nuremberg Chronicle as it is
Cambridge Digital Library
Cambridge University Library
HARTMANN - Nuremberg Chronicle translated in English : Hartmann : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
NUREMBERG CHRONIQUELiber Chronicarum, Dr Hartmann 1493translated in English, University of Wisconsin, published in Morse Library at Beloit College.
Internet Archive
After the division of tongues, many races and varieties of miraculous people appeared in various places in accordance with the will of God. For just as the Almighty graced this beautiful world with men of uniform likeness, so he also introduced therein miraculous creatures, some of whom are formed as is stated in what follows. Item: Some have but one eye, and that in the middle of the forehead. Some are a cubit in height, and do not live more than eight years. They live in the mountains of India, near the great sea, in a wholesome and ever verdant region. They conduct an unusual warfare against the cranes. Their wives bear at the age of five years. Others have very large feet and legs, but no paunches, and are marvelously fleet of foot. In the summertime, while lying on their backs, they protect themselves against the sun by the shade of their feet. Some are without heads, their eyes being in their shoulders. Some have the heads of dogs. In addition there are many and various other races of miraculous creatures that will be mentioned later in the text. Histories also record forms of people out of the ordinary course of nature, most of whom live far from the sea, and whom many considered miraculous and beyond belief. Who, without having seen them, would believe that such men as Ethiopians exist? And what person is not surprised when he sees one for the first time? Many things are considered impossible before they are seen. In Scythia, the country to the north, in a district called Geskleithron, are people such as are depicted on the following page, and who have but one eye, and that in the center of the forehead, and who are constantly at war with the Griffins.

Maps

Psalter World Map

Psalter world map - Wikipedia
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.Contributors to Wikimedia projects

The Ebstorf Map

Ebstorf Map - Wikipedia
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.Contributors to Wikimedia projects

Works Cited