Chrysame: Psychedelic Priestess-General of the Athenian Armies
Today we often think of psychedelics in strictly medicinal or otherwise positive terms. We talk about how they have been used for thousands of years to heal physical, mental, and spiritual ailments. The picture is usually very nice and flowery. The same holds true for medicine workers—specifically female medicine workers, who are often cast in terms as flowery as the medicines themselves (María Sabína serving as the obvious example). But history doesn’t care about culturally-approved anachronisms (no matter how “woke” they may sound) and every now and then we get glimpses of malevolent uses of these plants in history by powerful and privileged female practitioners. This short article seeks to address two paradigms current in psychedelia. First, that psychoactive plants and fungi have not always been used for beneficial purposes; second, that women medicine workers have not always used them benevolently. This, of course, is not meant to argue that maleficent psychedelic use has been the majority (far from it) or that women haven’t been marginalized in society (even farther from it). Rather, it aims to show that as our critical thinking abilities slowly dissolve into evermore absolutist paradigms that favor immutable characteristics over actual character, historical nuance will give us a richer (and more brutal) picture of both humanity and entheogenic plant use.
The Background
In the middle of the 2nd century CE an otherwise unknown writer named Polyaenus composed a work on war tactics, titled Strategems. Therein, he offers brief descriptions of clever generals and unlikely victories in battle, dedicating Book VIII of Strategems specifically to the deeds of women. There was, for example, Mania, who took over the area of Dardanus after her husband, Prince Zenis passed on. According to Polyaenus, “[Mania] always went to battle, drawn in a chariot, she gave her orders at the time of action, formed her lines, and rewarded every man who fought well.” Mania, unlike every male general with whom Polyaenus was familiar, never lost a single battle. We might also consider the actions of the women of Cyrene. When Ptolemy attacked the area sometime around 320 BCE, the civilian women helped the war effort by digging trenches, supplying war materials, and feeding and caring for the injured and dying. All this is to say nothing of the elite women warriors of Thrace. Such was their ferocity and bloodlust in battle that the Greeks had to invent a myth about them in order to explain their viciousness, gifting us legends of Αμαζόνα (or the “Amazons”). There exist many more examples, but all would belabor the point: namely, women were not passive, nameless actors on the historical stage. Not even during times of war.
Women’s Work
Outside the war rooms, women held power as priestesses and oracles. Sometimes, as in the case of a certain Thessalian priestess named Chrysame, knowledge of psychoactive plants helped ensure military victories. We don’t know much about Chrysame; Polyaenus gifting us our only source of her from history. Though, we know a few things about her and her surroundings. Firstly, Thessaly, a coastal region on the Eastern side of the Grecian mainland, was famous for the qualities and varieties of plants that we today would call “entheogenic.” Chrysame wasn’t just any priestess, but a priestess of the mystery school of the Goddess Enodia. Now, Enodia was a local name for the more recognizable name of the Goddess Hekate. Hekate/Enodia was famous for Her association with crossroads, torches, magic, and—most importantly for our purposes—magical pharmaka. According to Diodorus of Sicily, Hekate had personally found and sampled all the plants of Thessaly so as to know their virtues (medicinal) and occult powers (we would say “entheogenic”). Such were the traditions under which Chrysame studied.
The Psychedelic Trojan Horse
Sometime around 1000 BCE, the area we today call “Greece” was nothing more than a scattered series of nation- and city-states. The Ionians (named for Ion, son of Xuthus) had recently moved into Anatolia (Turkey), hoping to colonize and subdue the area by taking over its largest city, Erythrae. King Cnopus of the Codridae family (we know less about him than we know about Chrysame), aimed to regain control of Erythrae. A cautious man, he sought the advice of an oracle who told him victory could not be obtained should a man lead his army. The king’s cautiousness was matched by his deference to the oracle, for in those days it was largely accepted that no one was wiser than she. Acting quickly, Cnopus sent a scouting mission to Thessaly, which returned with Chrysame.
Chrysame had a plan. While a clumsier general might simply send troops into battle with little care for their well-being, Chrysame had compassion for her soldiers. And so she hatched a devious plan. She selected a bull from the herds and readied it for sacrifice by decorating its horns with gold and placing purple and golden garlands around its neck. She also fed the bull “a medicinal herb that would excite madness,” and left the bull in its stall for a brief period to allow him to digest the pharmakon. While we do not know what Chrysame fed the bull we may infer some kind of mushroom, as the strength of the pharmakon was such that “not only the beast who ate it was seized with madness; but also all, who ate the flesh of it, when it was in such a state, was seized with madness.” One is reminded of the Sami people of Siberia who wait until reindeer have fed on the amanita muscaria, and then drink the animals’ urine; the intoxicating effects of the mushroom is transferred to the imbiber. Chrysame seems to have had a similar effect in mind. And so she ordered her troops to set up a sacrificial altar right there on the battlefield! The altar erected and decorated for sacrifice, Chrysame commanded the now frantic bull brought before her. However, “under the influence of the medicine, the bull broke loose” and ran towards the enemy camp. The Ionians captured the bull, no doubt laughing at this failed priestess-general, Chrysame, as they corralled the poor beast. Setting up their own sacrificial altar to the Ionian gods, the troops then slaughtered the bull and feasted on its meat … which was exactly what Chrysame wanted them to do. For a short while after their ceremonial banquet, the Ionian troops began to feel the maddening effects of whatever pharmakon Chrysame had fed the bull. The priestess-general watched from a safe distance as the Ionians bellowed and ran around their camp in frenzy. She then ordered her troops to slaughter them all.
The story of Chrysame challenges our assumptions about plant medicine usage in the ancient world. The Ionians certainly did not have what we would call an “entheogenic experience” simply because they noshed on some kind of plant or fungal medicine delivered by a priestess. Still, Chrysame proved herself just as brilliant an herbalist as she was a brilliant war strategist. She was a psychedelic priestess of the Hekate school whose very training in that area propelled her to the position of General of the Athenian armies. Unfortunately, like most everyone in the ancient world, we know all-too-little about her. This is not to suggest that she was ignored by the pens of chroniclers. It’s more likely that other stories about her simply did not survive the unflinching ruins of time.
Thankfully, the account from Polyaenus did.