Herostratus

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Herostratus, or Eratostratus,<ref name="Borowitzx">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref>Template:Refn was an arsonist who destroyed the Temple of Artemis in an attempt to achieve infamy. Considered an early case of terrorism, his crime prefigured modern terrorist acts, including the assassination of Empress Elisabeth of Austria and the September 11 attacks.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> His name has become an eponym for someone who commits a criminal act solely to become famous, and the Herostratus syndrome afflicts "people who perpetrate odious attacks for the sake of infamy."

An obscure character, Herostratus burned down the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, in 356 BCE. He was swiftly arrested and tortured to death, during which he confessed his intentions: to gain everlasting fame. The arson prompted the passing of a Template:Lang law barring anyone from mentioning his name, although many ancient writers, including one contemporary of the arson, documented him. While Herostratus is thought to have been spurred on by resentment at what he considered societal injustice, his exact motives are not known with any certainty.

His life and crime have been adapted, discussed, and paralleled extensively in Western literature ever since the Middle Ages. Writers from Alessandro Verri to Jean-Paul Sartre have repurposed him into a fictional character, sometimes in the context of a modern world.

Life

Little is known about Herostratus.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> His identity "is shrouded in mystery except for the name that history attributes to him," remarks Albert Borowitz.<ref name="Borowitz1">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref>Template:Refn Details of his family,<ref name="Borowitz1" /> date of birth, residence, profession, and place in society have not been found.<ref name=":3" /> It is sometimes assumed that he was a citizen of Ephesus, located near the modern town of Selçuk, Turkey, but this remains uncertain.<ref name=":3">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> Furthermore, some historians have suggested that Herostratus was non-Ephesian by birth or a slave (or former slave), since the fatal punishment he was administered was typically reserved for noncitizens.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> Some, in fact, suspect he belonged to a low social standing.<ref name="Brinkhof">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref>

Burning the Temple

Template:Multiple image The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus,Template:Refn dedicated to the goddess of childbirth and the hunt, among other things,<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets § Artemis & Ephesus; Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> was a product of competition with the rival city Samos.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> Designed by Chersiphron and MetagenesTemplate:Refn and built over the course of 120 years starting around 560 BCE,<ref name=":10">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> it stood at double the size of the Parthenon, according to Pliny the Elder's measurements.<ref name="CartwrightTemple">Template:Harvard citation no brackets § The Temple</ref> It was made almost entirely of marble,<ref name=":6">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> save for, for instance, the wooden statue of Artemis<ref name="CartwrightTemple" /> and the roof.<ref name=":5">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> Ancient sources listed the temple as one of the seven wonders of the world.<ref name="Borowitz3">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> Philo of Byzantium deemed it "the only house of the gods,"<ref name=":1">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> and Pliny crowned it "the most wonderful monument of Græcian magnificence."<ref name=":7">Template:Harvard citation no brackets § The Seven Wonders</ref>

In 356 BCE, on the day Alexander the Great was born,Template:RefnTemplate:Refn a man burned down the temple.<ref name="CartwrightDestruction">Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets § Destruction & Rebuilding</ref> Sources such as Jordanes<ref name=":10" /> note that he set its large wooden roof ablaze.<ref name=":5" /> The crime was attributed to a "nobody"<ref name=":14">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> named Herostratus.<ref name=":6" /> Promptly arrested,<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets n. 1</ref> he was tortured to death on the rack,<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> where he confessed to having committed the arson to secure everlasting fame or notoriety.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref>Template:Refn To thwart his ambition<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> as well as to sharpen his punishment,<ref name=":9">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> Ephesus passed a damnatio memoriae law forbidding any mention of his name.<ref name=":8">Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> The arson shocked and grieved the city<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> and may have pushed it to the brink of a panic.<ref name=":9" />

However, there might be gaps in this account. One such gap, observes Albert Borowitz, is that Herostratus professed his vainglorious motives under torture instead of "[crying] his name … to all who would listen."<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> Torture was often not considered a means of obtaining information.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> Furthermore, Ephesians may have suspected that Herostratus' true intention remained concealed, for instance, in the event that enemies of Ephesus had hired him to burn the temple.<ref name=":9" />

The temple was rebuilt starting in 323 BC, which produced an even larger structure than before.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> The Goths eventually looted and burned it Template:Circa,<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> and the temple met its end in 401 CE when a Christian mob destroyed it.<ref name=":11">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> Today, a reassembled solitary column remains standing.<ref name=":10" />

Motives

There is no evidence pointing toward Herostratus' motives.<ref name="Borowitzxiv">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> While ancient sources agree that he burned the temple to acquire fame,<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> why he sought this fame is uncertain. However, the prevailing theory since antiquity is that resentment at a perceived injustice, that he lacked the means to achieve a favorable reputation, fuelled the act.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> The Greek satirist Lucian proposed, for the first time, that a sense of jealousy or mediocrity motivated Herostratus; he was unable to become famous in any way other than by burning the Artemision.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> According to the Russian poet Semyon Nadson, Herostratus had acknowledged that he was a "maggot squashed by destiny, in the midst of the countless hordes."<ref name="Brinkhof" /> Conversely, the Roman historian Valerius Maximus notes Herostratus' penchant for sacrilege as a factor.<ref name=":14" />

Transmission and historical interpretation

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The damnatio memoriae law proved futile, as numerous ancient writers documented Herostratus' name.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref>Template:Refn Theopompus, a Chian historian<ref name="Brinkhof" /> and contemporary of the arson, was the first; he mentions him in the Philippica.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> Strabo noted Herostratus as the man who burned the Temple of Artemis in the Geographica three centuries later.<ref name=":2">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> In a segment titled "Of Appetite for Glory", Valerius Maximus brings up the example of Herostratus to demonstrate quests for fame that resort to crime alongside that of Pausanias, who assassinated Philip II of Macedon.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> His essay was the first to juxtapose Herostratus with a criminal hunt for fame.<ref name=":2" /> Around the second century CE, the Greek satirist Lucian indicated the arson in relation with a later violent act, namely, Peregrinus' self-immolation at the Olympics.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref>

By the Middle Ages, Herostratus had become a familiar name in Europe.<ref name=":12">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> Several writers, such as Geoffrey Chaucer,<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> alluded to him, whom they generally treated as an "[embodiment of] the pursuit of celebrity at any cost." They also stressed that "negative fame often outlasts glory achieved by merit."<ref name=":12" /> Invoking the arsonist, the protagonist Juan Ruiz de Alarcón's 1630 comedy Template:Lang (The Suspicious Truth), Don García, reasons that having a low public profile renders one an "animal" and that fame must be sought after by any means necessary.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvnb</ref> In his 1699 play Richard III, Colley Cibber portrays the English king as fame-thirsty and eager to define himself even through abnormal methods, and thus he recalls the story of Herostratus:<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> "Th'aspiring Youth, that fir'd the Ephesian dome, / Outlives, in Fame, the pious Fool that rais'd it."<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref>Template:Refn Beyond literature, an oral tradition revolving around him arose.<ref name=":12" />

Starting from the Renaissance, Herostratus was a commonplace metonym for someone accused of ruthlessness.<ref name=":13">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> For instance, the satirist Gabriel Harvey wrote in the late sixteenth century an attack on another author, Robert Greene, likening his libellous actions to the burning of the Artemision.<ref name=":13" /> Thomas Jefferson was also derided as Herostratic. Following the Louisiana Purchase, he fantasized about grand salt deposits on the Missouri River, which one writer understood as a dream of glory similar to Herostratus'.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref>

Nineteenth-century literature, writes Albert Borowitz, commenced "the still ongoing process of converting Herostratos from a symbol of destructiveness into a richly imagined personage."<ref name=":15">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> Differing from ancient sources, some modern authors supply their account of Herostratus' arson with a background and context. While most rebuke his crime, some indirectly romanticize or abate it by highlighting his imagined obscurity and dejection.<ref name=":15" /> The Enlightenment writer Alessandro Verri published the first book-length fictional narrative on Herostratus in 1815, Template:Lang (The Life of Herostratus).<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> It tells the tale of a man seeking glory who, after constantly having his dreams shattered in failure, grows frustrated and burns the Temple of Artemis.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> On the other hand, Romantic and exoticist poetry tends to focus on Herostratus' supposed "joy in destruction or self-destruction" rather than his hunger for fame.<ref name=":16">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref>

Analysis and legacy

Herostratus' name has become a term for someone who commits a crime to achieve notoriety or self-glorification,<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> and Herostratic fame refers to "fame [sought] at any cost."<ref name=":4">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> According to Julia H. Fawcett, he "exemplifies a figure asserting his right to self-definition, one who strikes out against a history to which he is unknown by performing himself back into that history—through whatever means necessary."<ref name=":4" />

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Herostratus is sometimes considered the first terrorist.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> Modern terrorists, notes Albert Borowitz, tend to follow his example,<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref>Template:Refn hankering for publicity and aspiring to overcome perceived injustice.<ref name=":17">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> Such injustice may be deeply personal and rooted in a diminished sense of meaning or self-worth;<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> being unloved or confined to an "[intolerably] meaningless" existence are possible factors, according to James W. Clarke's analysis of assassins.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> Many, like Herostratus, are not ideologically or politically committed,<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> while others are, though, at the same time, devoted to fame.Template:Refn This can lead them to shun their claimed objectives, as seen when the jihadist Mohammed Merah murdered three Muslim soldiers in 2012.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> In fact, modern acts of terror often forge an appearance of senselessness.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref>Template:Refn

The Herostratic criminal targets a publicly valued symbol, an important person,<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> or multiple people.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> Valerius Maximus indicates that they thrive on "[absorbing] the celebrity of [their] prey."<ref name=":0" /> To harness this celebrity, in scholars' view, media coverage is required,<ref name=":17" /> such that the anti-technology terrorist Ted Kaczynski pledged to halt his bombing campaign if The New York Times and Washington Post published his manifesto.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> Driven by an urge to appear in the newspapers and, to a far lesser extent, his anarchistic leanings, Luigi Lucheni assassinated the Austrian empress Elisabeth,<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> and during the trial that followed, he acted theatrically and vaingloriously and "blew star's kisses to the audience."<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> The attorney general made the case for casting his name into "eternal oblivion."<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref>Template:Refn Similarly, Arthur Bremer, desperate for stardom, shot Alabama governor George Wallace in 1972. To him, the choice of victim depended on how much coverage he thought their assassination would garner.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> These Herostratic criminals all suffered a troubled past; Lucheni writes that his childhood was deprived of love,<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> and Kaczynski, among other things, faced academic pressure from his parents and trauma from a harrowing college experiment.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref>Template:Refn

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, numerous writers brought up Herostratus' name.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> The destruction of the World Trade Center, an "[icon] of [the United States]' might,"<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> was interpreted as a venture for immortality akin to the Artemision's demolition.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> Osama bin Laden, in fact, recorded a video of himself celebrating the terrorist attacks, which Borowitz regards as a tool of self-aggrandizement.<ref name="Borowitzxv" /> A contemporary commentator wrote, "[The] highlighting of terrorism in mass media is a trigger for the Herostratus phenomenon. Every showing of a shop's explosion, mass murder and falling skyscrapers gives birth to more and more terrorists."<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> The arson has also been paralleled with the Taliban's destruction of Buddhas in Afghanistan.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref>

Such criminals who "perpetrate odious attacks for the sake of infamy," in the words of Jean-Paul Azam and Mario Ferrero,<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> are consumed by the so-called Herostratus syndrome.<ref name="Borowitzxiv" /> Borowitz lays out seven elements constituting the syndrome:

• An appetite for enduring and widespread fame or notoriety to promote a personal sense of power<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref>
• Intending to spark public "panic, distress, insecurity, or loss of confidence"
• Targeting a famous person, property, or institution
• Jealousy toward successful people caused by "loneliness, alienation, mediocrity, and failure"
• Self-destructive behavior after or during the crime's course
• Sacrilege or iconoclasm
• Other motives, such as those ideological<ref name=":0">Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref>

Mental insanity does not necessarily figure in the syndrome, he argues. Instead, someone like Herostratus may perpetrate a criminal act simply because they feel that life has been unfair to them.<ref name="Borowitzxvi" /> Neither is it the case that Herostratic criminals must have psychological or pathological features distinguishing them from others.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref>

Geoffrey Scarre considers the case of Herostratus to discuss whether posthumous events can render one's life more significant. While he notes that his ambition, to secure fame, came into fruition and thus his "meaningless life" was seemingly made "meaningful," Scarre concludes that the arson did not in fact enrich Herostratus' life since "what is remembered about [him] is the pointless stupidity of the man and his project. If his was a strategy for evading absurdity, it was self-defeating in its own absurdity."<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref>

In modern literature and the arts

Jean-Paul Sartre's short story "Erostratus" concerns Paul Hilbert,<ref name="Brinkhof" /> who desires to become a "black hero" in the vein of Herostratus but fails due to his personal weakness.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> The 1967 film Herostratus, a critique of "an advertising-saturated society that exploited rather than empowered young people,"<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets</ref> molds the historical figure and event into a tale addressing 1960s society.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> The forlorn protagonist plans to kill himself, but before doing so, he arranges to make his suicide a media spectacle, until he changes his mind.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> A recent adaptation of Herostratus' arson, Philipe Arnauld's 2002 Template:Lang (Pandora's Box), foregrounds the relevance of mass media and the internet. A serial killer who goes by Herostratus intends to publish images of his murders on the internet until a detective catches him in a trap.<ref name=":16" />

Bibliography

Books

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Studies

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External links

• Entry of Herostratus in William Smith's 1867 Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology

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• Background information on the Temple of Artemis on 7wonders.org