between myth and history 193
of about 1.8 miles. The composition of the snail and its inner works
are not detailed in Polybius’s account. But the phrase “internal contriv-
ance” suggests some self- propelling mechanism. In 1937, Alfred Rehm
proposed that a man walking on a treadmill and another to steer were
concealed inside the model of the large mollusk. Treadmills existed in
antiquity; the massive, mobile “city- taker” siege machine, built in 323 BC
by Posidonius for Alexander the Great, might have relied on a treadmill,
and a Roman relief of the first century AD shows a huge construction
crane powered by many men inside a large treadmill. But Rehm’s theory
is still debated. 28
Why bother to create a gigantic moving replica of a lowly snail? One
might note that the Dionysia festival was held in winter, when the rains
begin and dormant land snails emerge in large numbers to crawl about,
so real snails on the move would be conspicuous everywhere in Athens.
Demetrius’s oversized snail was so “realistic” that it even left a trail of
slime as it inched along the route. This special effect would be easily
achieved with a reservoir of olive oil released from a hidden pipe.
The most significant detail is the fact that the Great Snail was fol-
lowed by a group of donkeys in the procession. This pairing of snail
and asses would be part of the snide joke. Snails were proverbially slow,
and because they carried their homes on their backs, they stood for
impoverishment. Donkeys were associated with dull- witted, lazy slaves
who work only when beaten. 29 As Demochares remarked (Polybius
12.13), the point of Demetrius’s spectacle was to taunt “the slowness
and stupidity of the Athenians.” The Great Snail itself was harmless, but
it was a dramatic and public way for the tyrant to humiliate the Athe-
nians, whose democracy was being crushed by Macedonians and their
collaborators.
A century later, in 207 BC, in Sparta, southern Greece, a malevolent
dictator named Nabis seized power and ruled until 192 BC. His reign was
long remembered for his barbarous acts, exiling, torturing, and killing
masses of citizens. Nabis and his imperious wife, Apega (probably Apia,
daughter of the tyrant of nearby Argos), collaborated to extort valuables
and money from people under their rule. Their story is told by Polybius,