The manticore or mantichore (Latin: mantichora; reconstructed Old Persian: ; Modern ) is a Persian legendary creature similar to the Egyptian sphinx that proliferated in western European medieval art as well. It has the head of a human, the body of a lion and the tail of a scorpion or a tail of venomous spines similar to porcupine quills. There are some accounts that the spines can be launched like arrows. It eats its victims whole, using its three rows of teeth, and leaves no bones behind.
Etymology
The term "manticore" descends via Latin mantichora from Ancient Greek (martikhórās) This in turn is a transliteration of an Old Persian compound word consisting of martīya 'man' and xuar- stem, 'to eat' (Mod. ; mard + ; khordan), i.e. man-eater.
The ultimate source of manticore was Ctesias, Greek physician of the Persian court during the Achaemenid dynasty, and is based on the testimonies of his Persian-speaking informants who had travelled to India. Ctesias himself wrote that the martichora () was its name in Persian, which translated into Greek as androphagon or anthropophagon (), i.e., "man-eater". But the name was mistranscribed as 'mantichoras' in a faulty copy of Aristotle, through whose works the notion of the manticore was perpetuated across Europe.
Ctesias was also later cited by Pausanias regarding the martichoras or of India.
Classical literature
An account of the manticore was given in Ctesias's lost book Indica ("India"), and circulated among Greek writers on natural history, but has survived only in fragments and epitomes preserved by later writers.
Photius's Myriobiblon (or Bibliotheca, 9th century) serves as base text, but Aelian (De Natura Animalium, 3rd century) preserves the same information and more:
The beast's name means "maneater", as already noted. Aelian citing Ctesias adds that the Mantichora prefers to hunt humans, lying in wait, taking down even 2, 3 men at a time. And the Indians take their young captive, disabling its tail by crushing it with stone before the growth of sting begins.
Pliny's Aethiopian beasts
Pliny described the "mantichora" in his Naturalis Historia (c. 77 AD) having relied on a faulty copy of Aristotle's natural history that contained the misspelling ("martikhoras").
Pliny also introduced the confused notion that the manticore might occur in Africa, because he had discussed this and other creatures (such as the yale) within a passage on Aethiopia. But he also described the crocotta and the mantichora of Aethiopia together, and while the crocotta imitated the voices of men the mantichora of Aethiopia too also mimicked human speech, on authority of Juba II, with a voice like the pipe (panpipe, fistula) mixed with trumpet.
Legacy
Ctesias purportedly saw a martichora presented to the Persian king by the Indians. The Romanised Greek Pausanias was skeptical and considered it an unreliable exaggerated account of a tiger. Apollonius of Tyana also dismissed the mantichore as a tall tale, according to the biography by Philostratus (c. 170–247).
Pliny did not share Pausanias' skepticism. And for 1500 years afterwards, it was Pliny's account, also copied by Solinus (2nd century), which was held to be authoritative on matters of natural history whether real or mythological. In the advent of Christianity, writings in the Holy Scripture combined with Plinian-Aristotelian learning gave rise to the Physiologus (also c. 2nd century), which later evolved into the medieval bestiaries some of which contained entries on the manticore.
Medieval sources
Bestiaries
The manticore has been included in some medieval bestiaries, with accompanying illustrations, though not all.
The thick-maned (and long-bearded) manticore wearing a Phrygian cap is a commonplace design (fig., top left).
In most instances, the manticora is "coloured red or brown and has clawed feet". Artists took the liberty of coloring the manticore blue at times. One example is depicted "as a long-haired blond" (fig., top right). Another has the face of a woman and the body of a blue manticore (fig., bottom right) .
Most manuscripts do not bother detailing the scorpion tail and simply draw a long cat's tail, but in Harley MS 3244 the manticore has an "oddly pointed tail" or an "extraordinary spike on the end" of it, and a tail covered in spikes from end to end is shown on the manticore in several other second family manuscripts
The three-rows of teeth are not faithfully represented except in some third family examples.