Frogs

vol. VII p.113-119

Frogs

(βάτραχος, ion. βάθρακος, βρόταχος, cf. Schol. Il. IV 243. Hesych. s. v. Etym. M. 214, 44. Prellwitz Etym. Wörterb. 74. Herwerden Lex. gr. suppl. 149; pont. βάβακος Hesych. s. v., <10> cypr. βρούχετος Hesych. s. v.; lat. rana ‘crier’, cf. Varro de l. l. V 13. Vaniček Etym. Wörterb. 25). The ancients knew the following kinds: the green pond or water frog (rana esculenta), the brown land or grass frog (rana fusca), the tree frog (hyla arborea), the fire-bellied toad (bombinator igneus) and two varieties of toad (bufo vulgaris and viridis).

According to Aristotle (hist. an. I 1, 6. IX 189), <20> frogs live in swamps (τελματιαῖοι βάτραχοι - ranae palustres in Hor. sat. I 5, 14; Isid. XII 6, 58 differentiates between aquaticae and palustres; fluviatiles ranae in Plin. n. h. XXXII 48, cf. Anton. Lib. 35), lay eggs, which cling together to form a mass (hist. an. VI 81), the front part of their tongue is attached, while the back part is unrestricted and wrinkled; with it, the male frogs produce their signature cry (ὀλολυγών), <30> which they use to attract females for mating (hist. an. IV 105ff. Plin. n. h. XI 172. Plut. de soll. an. 34. Aelian. n. h. IX 13. Schol. Arat. 948. Schol. Theocr. VII 139). The females are larger than the males (hist. an. IV 124), and all of them have a very small spleen (hist. an. II 64. Plin. n. h. XI 204). Swamp-frogs eat mostly bees, which they find on the water (hist. an. IX 189); beekeepers protect their bees by throwing leaves of evening primrose or bitter almonds into the water (Aelian. nat. an. I 58). <40> We have no report about the growth of the frog in Aristotle; Pliny fills this gap (n. h. IX 159) by reporting that they spawn small black clumps of flesh (gyrini ‘tadpoles’; βάτραχος γύρινος in Plat. Theaet. 161 d; γύρινοι in Arat. 947. Plut. quaest. phys. II 912 d; γέρυνες in Nicandr. Th. 620 with Schol. Alex. 562), in which you can only make out eyes and a tail (Plin. n. h. XXXII 122); then they grow their legs, and their back legs are formed by splitting the tail in half. <50> The further observation (Plin. n. h. IX 159) that frogs lie in mud during winter and only come out again in early spring is correct, an observation which later gave rise to the belief that frogs are formed from mud (Ovid. met. XV 375. Sext. Emp. pyrrh. I 41 p. 11, 23. Plut. quaest. conv. II 3). Their predators are storks (Plut. quaest. conv. VIII 7, 3. PLM V 367, 7), <60> swans (Aristoph. Epit. II 239, 89; according to Nepual. 17 Gemoll, sick swans ate frogs), snakes (Aelian. nat. an. IX 15. Plin. n. h. XXX 129. Verg. Georg. III 431), especially water snakes (Batrach. 82. Aes. fab. 76. Nic. Theoph. 366ff.), and kites (Aes. fab. 298). Lucian (ver. h. I 22) was aware of flying frogs (cf. Wallace Der malay. Archipel I 54), which the people on the moon roasted and then fed on their smoke. <page break 113/114> Theophrastus (frg. 174) is the first to clearly and explicitly differentiate between the water frog and the land frog. He fought against the legend of frog-rain, which had spread especially far in later times (Aelian. nat. an. II 56. Tim. G. 55; the land frog was therefore called βάτραχος διοπετής Plin. n. h. XXXII 70. 139; that frogs had sometimes turned up in such huge numbers that they forced an emigration is attested by Varro in Plin. n. h. VIII 104, <10> likely from Agath. in Phot. bibl. 446, from that Strab. XVI 772. Diod. III 30. Aelian. nat. an. XVII 41. Iust. XV 2), and explained that the phenomenon of frogs turning up in huge numbers after rain came from the fact that they left their hiding places in droves after water got into them.

Water is the element of the frog (cf. Suid. s. βατράχῳ ὕδωρ). In mild spring nights, <20> their concerts (βοᾶν, θορυβεῖν - coaxare, cf. Suet. Aug. 94. PLM V 366, 64; garrire in Mart. III 93, 8; the cry sounded like βρεκεκεκὲξ κοὰξ κοάκ to the Greeks Arist. Frogs 209 and elsewhere. Aes. fab. 298) ring out to the joy of Pan and the nymphs of springs (Arist. Frogs 229. Anth. Pal. IV 406), while they disturb the poor mortals in their sleep (Hor. sat. I 5, 14). Athene had to suffer their croaking once herself, and because of that she refused to help them in their battle with the mice (Batrach. 187ff.). <30> When Dionysos and his sidekick climbed into the bark of the Acheron in the underworld, they justly angered the god with their incessant koax, in time with which he had to row (Arist. Frogs 226ff.). Perseus, whose peace had been disturbed by the green travellers after the battle with the gorgon on Seriphos, begged his father Zeus to make them silent, and from that time onwards the frogs on this wretched island were quiet (Ps.-Arist. mir. ausc. 70. Antig. Car. 4. Aelian. nat. an. III 37. Plin. n. h. VIII 227). <40> Theophrastus rejected this legend, and explained the animals’ silence with the cold temperature of the water. According to Antig. loc. cit., there was another version of the story, which makes Heracles the one who made them silent. Βάτραχος ἐκ Σερίφου became a proverb, cf. Suid. s. v. Similar tales are told of a sea in Thessalian Pieria by Aelian. nat. an. III 37. Plin. n. h. VIII 227, <50> in Macedonia by Plin. n. h. XI 268, as well as Cyrene in Arist. hist. an. VIII 158. Plin. n. h. VIII 227. Ps.-Arist. ausc. 68. Aelian. nat. an. III 35; the same is assigned to the young Augustus by Suet. Aug. 94. If their cry became too annoying, people used to set up a light on the seashore (Geop. XIII 18). Because of their gift in prophecy, they were holy to Apollo (Arist. Frogs 231, cf. Fränkel Arch. Jahrb. I 48ff.); <60> the ancient people generally interpreted their lively croaking to mean it was going to rain (Ps.-Theophr. de sign. temp. 15. Arat. 946. Aelian. nat. an. IX 13 from Arist. Plin. n. h. XVIII 361. Verg. Georg. I 378. Plut. quaest. phys. 2. Cic. ad Att. XV 16). If the young land frogs suddenly appeared in hoards, then people believed that a damp year was coming up (Arist. probl. I 22, 862a 10). To a thirsty traveller, their cry revealed that they were near a spring which would save them (Anth. VI 43). <page break 114/115> This relationship between the frog and the prophetic god makes the dedication of a bronze frog to Apollo understandable (cf. Fränkel loc. cit.). In later times, this symbolism had become strange; they had wracked their heads (Plut. de Pyth. or. 12) over what the frog in the votive offering that Kypselos had once given to Delphi (a frog and a watersnake at the foot of a palm tree) meant (Plut. loc. cit.; sept. sap. conv. 21). <10> According to old folklore, the frog belonged to the animals which populated the underworld (Arist. Frogs 207ff.). How long this idea had remained alive across antiquity is shown by Juvenal (II 50), who makes fun of this old wives’ tale. According to the New Testament (Apok.[?] 16, 13), the impure spirits, the monstrosities of hell, appeared in the form of frogs; this idea likely also gave rise to the belief that frogs were poisonous. <20> However, the opposite was just as often ascribed to them: they were generally seen as apotropaic, that is, blessed with medicinal powers against magic. The frog on the base of a silver mixing jug (Anth. Pal. IX 406, cf. v. Wilamowitz Antig. 169) was, without doubt, supposed to drive away all evil magic from the contents of the container and from the one pouring. The little frogs, a large number of which we still have from antiquity, <30> made of glass, porcelain, bronze, Agath[?] served the same purpose, as well as the depictions of frogs on gems, lamps, votive hands, magic nails, on the bases of columns and on bits of architecture (cf. Fränkel Arch. Jahr. I 48. O. Jahn Ber. d. sächs. Ges. d. Wiss. 1855, 99ff. Michaelis Arch. Ztg. XXI 43, about frogs on Etruscan objects, cf. O. Jahn Ficor. Cista 36f.). According to Greek mythology, frogs were originally humans, Lycian farmers or shepherds. Once Latona had arrived at Lycia with her two children after fleeing from the wrath of Juno, <40> they helped her to quench her thirst in a body of water surrounded by reeds (Ovid. met. VI 317ff. Nicander and Menecrates in Ant. Lib. 35. Prob. on Verg. Georg. I 378 from a commentary on Ovid). How wonderfully these animals had engaged the imagination of the Greeks is shown by the fact that a barbarian prince Pigres, the brother of Artemisia, had glorified their battle against the mice in a parody-poem, whose material was borrowed from the fables (cf. Aes. fab. 298), <50> and by the fact that the greatest Greek comedian named one of his comedies after them. In Greek fables, they were seen as a symbol of cowardliness (Aes. fab. 76. 237. Arat. 946), though also as big-headed (this is where the saying comes from: inflat se tanquam rana in Petron. 74, cf. Aes. fab. 84. Babr. 28. Phaedr. I 24; reference in Hor. sat. II 3, 314. Mart. X 79, 9; according to Marcion Smyrnaeus frogs burst when you spit on them, Plin. n. h. XXVIII 38). <60> According to Artemidor (on. II 15, 110 H.), frogs seen in dreams represented jesters and beggars. A slave who dreamt that he showered frogs with slaps in the face took on the job of overseeing the other domestic slaves.

It has already been mentioned that frogs were thought to be poisonous. <page break 115/116> Aelius Promotus gives the symptoms of somebody who has been poisoned: poor appetite, spit collecting in the mouth, vomiting, and heart palpitations. Remedies included wine, juice from Cyrenaica, silphium, carraway, pepper (Ael. Prom. περὶ δ. φ.) as well as seaweed (Plin. n. h. XXV 130), eryngium (Plin. n. h. XXII 18. Diosc. III 21), breast milk (Plin. n. h. XXVIII 73), tortoise-blood (Plin. n. h. XXXII 33, cf. Aet. XIII 60). <10>

The tree-frog is first described in the Ps.-Theophrastan work περὶ σημείων 15: it is green and able to climb trees, from which it prophecies rain with its call (cf. Plin. n. h. XXXII 92). It was also called βάτραχος καλαμίτης, because it lived in thickets of cane and in bushes, and was thought to be the smallest and greenest of all frogs (Plin. n. h. XXXII 122. 75. Isid. or. XII 6, 58; in Gal. XII 262 he uses the name βρέξαντες, in place of which βρεξάνορας should probably be read). <20> The fire-bellied toad was called λιμναία φρύνη, and, on account of its moaning call, the ‘sorrowful’ one, by Nikander (Alex. 575ff.). In February, the toad cries out from ponds and swamps and heralds the awakening of spring (Nic. Al. loc. cit.); because of this, it was seen as a symbol of spring (Plut. de def. or. 12). Its call gave it the name ὀλολυγών (Theocr. VII 139 with Schol. Eub. in Athen. XV 679 b. Nikainetos in Parth. XI, Myth. Gr. II 23, 9. Hesych. s. v.; acredula for the Romans, Cic. prognost. v. 220 B. PLM V 364, 15. Isid. orig. XII 6, 59 [mistakenly]). <30> The ancients differentiated between two kinds of toad (φρῦνος, φρύνη - rubeta, often also rana, cf. Plin. n. h. XVIII 158 with Geop. II 18, 14): the summer toad (bufo vulgaris) and the silent green toad (bufo viridis), which sat in thorny hedges (Plin. n. h. XXXII 49) and reeds in spring, and licked the dew with its poisonous tongue (Apollodor in Nic. Al. 567ff. with Scholia Aelius Prom. loc. cit. Aet. XIII 37. Ps.-Diosc. II 38). <40> They are the largest of all amphibians (Plin. n. h. XXXII 49. Isid. orig. XII 6, 58), almost as large as a small turtle (Aet. loc. cit.), with large back legs (Plin. n. h. XVIII 303) and larger eyes than the rest of the frogs (Schol. Nic. Al. 567). Their back is covered with warty protrusions (Aet. loc. cit.), and behind their ears sits the so-called ear-glands (cornua Plin. n. h. XXXII 49). <50> Their liver has two lobes, once of which is poisonous, the other of which serves as an antidote (Aelian. nat. an. XVII 15. Plin. n. h. XI 196. XXXII 50; the poisonous one wasn’t eaten by ants), their spleen is small like all frogs (Arist. hist. an. II 64), of both the bones in the upper arm, the left one was called the apokynon, because it protected them against dog-bites (Plin. n. h. XXXII 52). They live in water and on land (Plin. n. h. VIII 110. Aet. loc. cit.), they eat insects (Arist. hist. an. IV 192. Plin. n. h. XI 62), and are eaten by hawks (Arist. hist. an. IX 13). <60> The green toad is disgusting to look at (Aelian. XVII 12) and poisonous, since it keeps all the poison from its food (Plin. n. h. VIII 110). People got the poison by pricking the animal to wound it (Schol. Nic. Al. 567). The ancient accounts about how poisonous toads are are excessively exaggerated. <page break 116/117> People used to say that looking at the animal would turn you pale (Aelian. nat. an. XVII 12. Aet. loc. cit.), and even that just touching it or inhaling its breath would be lethal (Aelian. loc. cit. Plin. n. h. XXV 123. Aet. loc. cit.). In the time of the empire, toad-lungs served as a tool for murdering spouses (Iuv. VI 659), toad-blood played an important role in love-magic (Hor. ep. V 19. Prop. III 6, 27. Iuv. I 70. III 44, cf. Luc. Philops. 12). <10> All these over-the-top accounts about how poisonous toads are can be explained by the myth for this animal’s origin. Its pale colour, as well as the fact that Hekate was imagined in the form of a toad (she is called φρυνῖτις in Par. h. mag. III 2 S. 289 Abel), lead to the assumption that we have to consider its chthonic nature. When, at last, the scholia to Nic. Al. 578 call the poisonous type of toad κέρβερος, <20> then in this epithet we are looking at an echo from an old legend, according to which toads, like the foxglove, were imagined as having emerged from the drool of the hell-hound. The symptoms of somebody poisoned by a toad are, similar to aconite, pale-green skin, difficulty breathing, very bad breath, vomiting bile, the body convulsing in heavy gulps, stomach-aches, and involuntary ejactulation, which leads to impotence (Nic. Al. loc. cit. Ps.-Diosc. II 38ff. Aelius Prom. loc. cit. Aet. XIII 37). <30> Treatment was made up of an abundance of wine and sitting in sweating baths, cane roots mixed with wine (as Praxagoras according to Schol. Nic. Al. 588) and Cyprus-grass was also recommended, as well as continual movement of the body and not eating. Further remedies were: phrynion (astragalus paterion Plin. n. h. XXV 123), alisma (Plin. loc. cit. Diosc. III 152), crayfish (Plin. n. h. XXXII 54), a broth of monkfish cooked in wine and vinegar (Plin. n. h. XXXII 48), <40> and deer-antlers (Theophr. frg. 175). In the legend of the Peloponnesian division of land, they appear as a heraldic animal on the altar of Temenos (Apollod. II 8, 4. 5; cf. Fourmont Hist. de l’acad. des inscr. XVI 105). Like the frog, the toad possessed prophetic powers: if they went into the water, it meant rain was coming (Ps.-Theophr. de sign. temp. 15).

Toads and frogs played such an important role in magicians’ superstitious remedies as well as in agriculture that Pliny (n. h. XXXII 49) felt himself forced to say that these animals would be far more useful in life than laws, if all this were true. People would put wolves to sleep with the shoulderblade of a toad (Aristoph. Epit. II 243. Tim. Gaz. IX 13). If the right bone in the upper arm was thrown into boiling water, it became cold and wouldn’t heat up again until the bone was taken out again (Plin. n. h. XXXII 51); <60> used as an amulet, the bone would help all fevers, as well as the liver and heart, especially for four-day ones (Plin. n. h. XXXII 52. 114), and it lessed the sex drive (Plin. n. h. XXXII 49. 139). The left bone in the upper arm made water boil; if you were to put it into a drink, then it would make the drinker lustful and prone to fighting (Plin. n. h. XXXII 52). <page break 117/118> A concoction of toad-ashes or frog-intestines in oil with old fat helped against podagra and joint pains (Plin. n. h. XXXII 110). Toads and frogs explode when you spit on them (Marcion of Smyrna in Plin. n. h. XXVIII 38). Frogs cooked with spelt in old wine help against dropsy (Plin. n. h. XXXII 118), and fresh frogs replaced from time to time lessen joint pains (Plin. n. h. XXXII 111). A broth of a frog cooked in oil at a crossroads gets rid of four-day fevers (Plin. n. h. XXXII 113). <10> Wearing the heart as an amulet lessens ague, as well as the oil in which the entrails have been cooked (Plin. n. h. XXXII 114). The liquid from a frog cooked in oil helps against sore throats and swollen tonsils (Plin. n. h. XXXII 90). For toothache, they would use the decoction of a frog in oil and water to rinse the mouth out with (Diosc. II 28. Plin. n. h. XXXII 80), <20> or they would let the mucus of multiple frogs hung up by their hind legs pour into boiling vinegar, and drink the liquid (Sallustius Dionysius in Plin. loc. cit.); they would also give it as a broth to people of a stronger physical constitution, or they would tie a frog to their chin (Plin. n. h. XXXII 81), or they would lie a frog’s liver on their teeth (Plin. loc. cit.) or cook 36 frog-hearts in old oil, and drip the decoction into the ear (Plin. loc. cit.). Scabies was got rid of with a frog cooked in seawater (Plin. n. h. XXXII 85). <30> Cooked into a broth with salt and oil, they help against snake venom (Diosc. II 28. Plin. n. h. XXXII 48), cooked off with the root of eryngium they help against salamander venom (Nic. Al. 562). For baldness, the ashes of three frogs burnt alive in a pot mixed with tar was used as an ointment (Diosc. II 28. Plin. XXXII 67. Gal. XII 362); the ashes or dried blood also served as a haemostatic (Diosc. II 28. Plin. n. h. XXXII 121. Gal. XII 362); <40> in this case, many people used the ashes and blood of the tree-frog (Plin. n. h. XXXII 122); the ashes of the tadpoles were administered for nosebleeds (Plin. n. h. XXXII 122). The decoction of frogs with squill or the heart rubbed with honey helped against dysentery (Nikeratos in Plin. XXXII 101). People got rid of coughs by spitting into a tree-frog’s mouth and then letting it go (Plin. n. h. XXXII 92). <50> Carrying the eye of a frog on a linen cloth as an amulet made you infertile (Afric. in Psell. lect. mirab. 144 Westerm.); the right eye, when used as an amulet, cures bleary-eyedness in the right eye, and the left the left (Plin. n. h. XXXII 74); if you rip out a frog’s eyes while the moon passes over the sun, then carry them in an eggshell as an amulet, they cure white specks in the eye (Plin. n. h. XXXII 74); the meat helps against bloodshot eyes (Plin. loc. cit.). <60> Iulius Africanus’ κλεπτέλεγχον was made up of salted tadpole-tongues mixed with barley-flour (Afric. in Psell. loc. cit.). The stick with which you have knocked a frog out of a snake’s mouth is supposed to help at births (Plin. n. h. XXX 129). Frog-ashes with fish glue cured burns (Plin. n. h. XXXII 119). <page break 118/119> The blood of a tree-frog prevented eyelashes from growing back (Plin. n. h. XXXII 70. Gal. XII 262). If you remove the tongue from a live frog cleanly, so that no other part of the frog’s body is hanging off of it, and put it on the heart of a sleeping woman, then she will always tell the truth (Democritus in Plin. n. h. XXXII 48). If you stick a tube through the body of a frog from its anus to its mouth, <10> and then into the monthly cleaning of a woman, she will not have an affair (Plin. n. h. XXXII 49). Putting the meat onto a fishhook was supposed to attract purple-snails (Plin. loc. cit.). The slime scraped off the body of a tree-frog makes the eyes clairvoyant (Plin. n. h. XXXII 75). People applied the meat of a tree-frog for eye pains (Plin. loc. cit.). For sick eyelids, <20> the juice of 15 frogs poked through with a cane [as in the plant] helped (Plin. loc. cit.). To remove eyelashes, they would use an ointment made from the rotting flesh of a frog drowned in vinegar (Meges in Plin. n. h. XXXII 76), as well as the saliva from a tree-frog or the decoction of its dried and crushed meat with oil (Plin. n. h. XXXII 136). Dripping fat from a frog cures earache (Plin. n. h. XXXII 78); the decoction of water-frogs in old wine with spelt cures dropsy (Plin. n. h. XXXII 118). <30>

To protect millet from sparrows and worms, before tilling you should carry a frog around the field at night, and then bury it in a clay pot in the middle of the same field; however, you must dig it up again before the first harvest, or the millet will become bitter (Geop. II 18, 14 from Democritus [?], cf. Plin. n. h. XVIII 158). A frog buried in the middle of the field protects against bad weather (Archibios in Plin. n. h. XVIII 294). <40> Grain keeps better in barns when you hang a frog up by one of its two hind feet at the entrance of the barn before you bring it in (Plin. n. h. XVIII 303). The decoction of a frog in water cures all illnesses in pigs, as well as frog-ashes (Plin. n. h. XXXII 141); the decoction of a frog in goat-meat cures all illnesses in cattle (Plin. n. h. XXVIII 265). The fat of a frog cooked in water mixed with lentil flour and oil helps against mange in cattle (Pelag. 356. Veg. III 71, 5). <50> If you give a dog a living frog inside a dumpling, you won’t be barked at (Plin. n. h. XXXII 140. Isid. orig. XII 6, 59). If you give it a cooked frog to eat, it will run after one (Saserna in Varro de r. r. II 9, 6). If a cow swallows a tree-frog, its stomach will swell up (Plin. n. h. XXXII 75). About pictorial depictions, <60> cf. as well as the works already cited Imhoof-Blumer and Teller Tier- und Pflanzenbilder auf Gemmen und Münzen Taf. VI 40. 41.

[M. Wellman]