Aristeas


Aristeas was a semi-legendary Greek poet and miracle-worker, a native of Proconnesus in Asia Minor, active ca. 7th century BC. The Suda claims that, whenever he wished, his soul could leave his body and return again. In book IV.13-16 of The Histories, Herodotus reports
Two hundred and forty years after his death, Aristeas appeared in Metapontum in southern Italy to command that a statue of himself be set up and a new altar dedicated to Apollo, saying that since his death he had been travelling with Apollo in the form of a sacred raven.

Arimaspea

Aristeas was supposed to have authored a poem called the Arimaspea, giving an account of travels in the far North. There he encountered a tribe called the Issedones, who told him of still more fantastic and northerly peoples: the one-eyed Arimaspi who battle gold-guarding griffins, and the Hyperboreans among whom Apollo lives during the winter.
Longinus excerpts a portion of the poem:
Similarly, the Chiliades of Ioannes Tzetzes quotes the Arimaspea. These two accounts form our entire knowledge of the poem, which is otherwise lost.

In popular culture

This story appears to be referred to in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman comics: Aristeas was a poet who lived around 700 BC, and was transformed into one of many ravens who have acted as both adviser and assistant to The Endless known as Dream. Not to be confused with the raven Matthew, the main raven in the Sandman tale, who existed in human form in the Swamp Thing continuity before his time as a resident of the Dreaming.
One of the three permanent guardians of the Sandman's castle-gate is a Griffon, who on one occasion tells Matthew that he "was hatched and raised in the mountains of Arimaspia"; referring to the 7th century BC poem which first refers to griffons.