Journal of Biblical Literature - Society of Biblical Literature

Friesen: Myth and Resistance in Revelation 13 295
Truth Claims Credibility Authority
Fable No No No
Legend Yes No No
History Yes Yes No
Myth Yes Yes Yes
Using these categories we can describe at least three ways in which people
use myths and related narratives. 39
1. Downgrading a myth to the status of history or legend by questioning
the myth’s authority or credibility.
2. Mythologizing history, legend, or fable by attributing authority and/or
credibility to them so that they gain the status of myth.
3. Reinterpreting established myths in new ways.
Returning to the two imperial panels from the Sebasteion, we have clear
examples of the mythologization of specific historical events. This is accomplished
through stylistic decisions (such as the divine nudity) and through allusion
to mythic narratives such as battles with amazons or to the Trojan War. 40
The process does not create an allegory, however: in the myths, the amazons
die; in history, the neighboring regions lived on, either forcibly absorbed into
the empire or subdued and granted limited autonomy at the border. The process
of mythologization worked by analogy rather than by allegory, proposing
similarities between stories of the emperors and myths and thereby investing
one with the authority of the other. Note also that the mythologization of imperial
military strength was accomplished in a ritual setting. This combination of
new myth and ritual at the Sebasteion enforced the Roman social order. It
incorporated the emperors into the myths of western Asia Minor, with particular
emphasis on their military victories.
Several other panels celebrated the victories of the emperors in mythic
terms, 41 although it is no longer clear which emperors were displayed. A third
panel for consideration interprets the ambivalent results of those victories (fig.
9). The panel depicts an unidentified emperor standing next to a trophy (the
armor of his fallen foe displayed on a pole). On the right stands a Roman figure,
personifying either the senate or the people of Rome, who crowns the con-
39 Lincoln provides specific modern examples of these deployments (Discourse, 15–23 and
27–37).
40 There is also in the Nero panel a hint of an allusion to the story of Menelaus retrieving the
body of Patroklos (Smith, “Imperial Reliefs,” 118–19).
41 There are four extant panels from the third story that portray winged Nikes.