I THE CHAMELEON IN THE VINEYARD

Although the manuscript tradition, as Barnes notes, ‘is poor and often corrupt’, we can rely on the critical edition established by Marie Turcan and the careful commentary of Vincent Hunink.Footnote ⁹ Here, I reproduce Turcan's text, followed by my own translation, for which I am indebted to the work of both scholars.

From this description, it is not hard to recognise the lizard-like creature that would have been a familiar denizen of the gardens of North Africa. Before arriving at the one factor that justifies the creature's inclusion, namely its ability to change colour to match its environment, Tertullian identifies its favoured habitat of vineyards. He makes note of its Greek name and stresses its small size.Footnote ¹⁰ He singles out notable features of its anatomy: its apparent lack of a neck and its protuberant eyes, which appear to swivel in their sockets. He comments on its characteristic traits, lingering over its lethargic gait, which he takes as evidence of the creature's lack of sucus, the nutritive fluid that gives vitality to all living things,Footnote ¹¹ and its tendency to inflate itself, which he understands to be a kind of feeding behaviour. These details, although undeniably interesting, seem quite superfluous. What then is their purpose?

It is quite possible that Tertullian is simply parading his erudition. The treatise is, after all, a showpiece, written in the epidectic style. He aims to convince his listeners with a display of virtuosity and learning: in this case, his command of zoological detail.

The chameleon apparently aroused great interest among the ancient naturalists. According to Pliny the Elder, Democritus devoted an entire book to the creature, carefully describing the shape and properties of each part of its body.Footnote ¹² And if we compare Tertullian's description with that of the ancient naturalists, we find significant commonalities. Pliny also noted the chameleon's unusual eyes, its meagre flesh and lack of blood, and its astonishing ability to change colour.Footnote ¹³ He too suggested that it receives its nourishment not from food or drink, but from the air, and opined that for this reason, it holds its mouth open.Footnote ¹⁴ In addition to these features, Aristotle had earlier observed the creature's characteristic sluggishness as well as the tortoise-like roughness of its skin.Footnote ¹⁵

But if Tertullian's aim was simply to impress his audience, why did he omit some of the other striking features that the natural historians include? For example, apart from his acknowledgement that the creature has bulging eyes but no neck, he offers little physiological information. Yet, the general configuration of the chameleon's body was of great interest to Aristotle, who carefully noted its prominent spine, the arrangement of its ribs, its birdlike feet and long, coiled tail. Pliny picked up and adapted these same features; and both men observed the animal's tendency to hibernate during the winter.

From these authors, Tertullian has obviously made a selection of facts. He may want to impress, but the effect he seeks is not that of sheer amplitude. And then there is the central puzzle: why does he delay mentioning the chameleon's most striking trait, especially as this is ostensibly the only characteristic relevant to his argument?Footnote ¹⁶ And when he does come to the point, why does he express this capacity in such an oddly stilted manner: that it is ‘suffused’ by any object it has approached? Clearly, something else is going on. To see what this is, we must consider how he frames the passage.

The description begins, as already noted, with a quotation from archaic tragedy, specifically Pacuvius’ play Antiopa. Although only fragments of Pacuvius’ works remain, he was a well known author, even in North Africa.Footnote ¹⁷ The line reads: ‘there is also the four-footed, slowly stepping, clumsy, lowly, rough creature’ (‘Quadrupes tardigrada, agrestis, humilis, aspera’). In its original context, the quotation was a riddle that played upon the double meaning of testudo, as not only tortoise but also lyre, since the instrument typically used a tortoise shell as a sound-box.Footnote ¹⁸ Tertullian flatters his audience, but also teases them, by asking, ‘Do you think it is the Pacuvian tortoise?’ before immediately answering his own question: ‘No it's not.’ He then repurposes the riddle, asking in effect, ‘What is really quite small, but large in name?’ (‘Capit et alia bestiola uersiculum, de mediocribus oppido, sed nomen grande’).Footnote ¹⁹

Given this build-up, the fact that he immediately provides the solution — ‘it is the chameleon’ — seems absurdly anticlimactic. But as his description continues, one begins to suspect that the joke is far from over: peculiar adjectives, puzzling verbs and unexpected neologisms abound. The impact of successive oxymoronic statements is particularly striking. A summary of their content reveals their common structure: ‘What is fearful yet risible; never eating, but always being fed; unable to move an inch, but shifting totally?’Footnote ²⁰ Instead of solving the riddle, the chameleon extends it.

II THE CHAMELEON JOKE

There is, of course, nothing more likely to kill a joke than dissecting it. But in this case, it cannot be helped, since much of the humour lies in deliberate double meanings.Footnote ²¹ Consider, for example, Tertullian's description of the creature's eyes: ‘Turning in the opposite direction is thus difficult; but, in order to look around, its protruding little eyes — or rather pinpricks of light — spin dizzily.’Footnote ²²

Part — but only part — of the problem lies in the curious adjective emissicii. This is a very rare word, coined by Plautus. It occurs in his Pot of Gold (Aulularia), when the main character yells at his elderly female slave, characterising her as a ‘snooping woman with spying eyes’ (‘circumspectatrix cum oculis emissiciis’).Footnote ²³ The parallel in Tertullian is hard to miss: not only does emissicii modify ocellis, but circumspectum also picks up circumspectatrix.Footnote ²⁴ But if the comic echo is clear, the humour, as Hunink observes, ‘seems less obvious’.Footnote ²⁵

And how should we understand the brief but surprising statement: ‘Chamaeleon pellicula uiuit’? Does it mean that the creature is ‘a little skin that lives’ or that it ‘lives by its little skin’?Footnote ²⁶ If we assume the former, then the sentence restates the previous point, albeit in striking terms: that lacking any juice, the creature appears to be nothing but animate skin. But if we take it in the latter sense, then it presents a puzzle: in what way does the chameleon live by its skin? If this is indeed the meaning, then its solution may be found a few lines later in the otherwise curious phrase ‘follicans ruminat’. The rare word for bellows is clear enough, but what is it doing here? Understood as part of another deliberately riddling formulation, however, it makes sense, since whatever ‘feeds by inflating itself’, like a pair of leather bellows, may indeed be said to ‘live by its skin’.Footnote ²⁷

Our puzzlement deepens as we hear about the slow moving lizard. Why is it important that ‘it scarcely holds itself above the ground’ (‘uix a terra suspendit’)?Footnote ²⁸ Does ‘gradum magis demonstrat quam explicat’ mean that ‘it more gestures towards a step than takes one’, or that ‘it demonstrates rather than explains a step’?Footnote ²⁹ And then we come to its dietary habits. These are stressed and yet seem not to advance the argument. What is their purpose?

Tertullian, I would suggest, is creating the same effect as Francis Ponge achieved in his humorous poem on the telephone, L'appareil du téléphone. This, as Michael Riffaterre demonstrated, achieves its comic effect by generating two texts side by side.Footnote ³⁰ One is a descriptive discourse that is factual, even technical in nature; it carefully describes the instrument's portable base, dial, wires, bell, dial tone — and even explains how to make a call.Footnote ³¹ The other is a figurative discourse that is expressed in images that are flagrantly ornamental and embellishing. These construct, in effect, an ode to the telephone, which recasts the banal equipment in aquatic terms.Footnote ³² Because the two semantic fields are so extremely remote from each other and do not fit together, the effect is comical.

Riffaterre offers a brilliant analysis of the reader's experience. One begins in good faith, but then stumbles over a word, ‘a rather rare, hence highly visible, vaguely comical, clearly colloquial term’. ‘That's odd’, one thinks, but carries on, only to encounter another oddity, and then another. The effect of ‘gratuitous fancifulness’ mounts and forces itself upon the reader's attention.Footnote ³³ Over-determined, it becomes impossible to ignore: the poem's dominant code is crustacean. There is a lobster hidden in the ’phone.

In a similar fashion, I would suggest, Tertullian has hidden a philosopher inside the chameleon. The tipping point for most listeners comes at the curious turn of phrase, ‘gradum magis demonstrat quam explicat’. For if it is impossible to imagine a small lizard ‘explaining a step’, the wording becomes clear when understood as an allusion to Diogenes the Cynic, who once refuted the Eleatic assertion that there was no such thing as motion, by simply getting up and walking away.Footnote ³⁴

Once we get the joke, other puzzling phrases fall into place. The chameleon's peculiar feeding habits, for example, suddenly make a new kind of sense. For if some attention to diet might be expected, given the preoccupations of the natural historians, Tertullian's stress on the creature's habitual non-eating seems oddly insistent: ‘Ieiunus scilicet semper et indefectus, oscitans uescitur, follicans ruminat, de uento cibus.’ First, there is the particle scilicet. Although it would make sense to take this in its concessive sense (‘always fasting, to be sure, but not exhausted’), there is the possibility that it should be read ironically (‘Always fasting — if you please! — yet not exhausted’); the fact that it is followed by paradoxical assertions, couched in unusual language, fosters this inclination.Footnote ³⁵ Then there is the double repetition of the point (‘by yawning it feasts; by inflating itself it feeds’); and finally the abrupt syntactical shift in the final clause (‘its food is from the wind’), which, as Hunink notes, ‘creates a surprise effect’.Footnote ³⁶ The reason for this emphasis, however, becomes clear when we consider another characteristic trait attributed to Diogenes. An early poem of Cercidas of Megalopolis styles him as αἰθεριβόσκας.Footnote ³⁷ The term is striking and equivocal. It might refer to Diogenes’ disdain for social conventions and thus to his habit of satisfying bodily needs in as natural and public a way as possible. Taking it in this sense, we might translate it, with López Cruces, as ‘feeding in the open air’, or even ‘living in the open air’.Footnote ³⁸ Certainly stories in which the Cynic scandalised onlookers by eating in public circulated widely in antiquity. But the most obvious translation of the epithet is that he ‘fed on air’.Footnote ³⁹ Understood in this sense, it would neatly account for Tertullian's emphasis. And it might also explain the odd line, ‘uix a terra suspendit’. Perhaps this is neither a reference to the creature's apparent torpor (that ‘it scarcely holds itself above the ground’), nor an extension on the bilingual pun on its Greek name (‘earthlion’), but rather a nod towards the philosopher's presumed relationship to terrestrial reality (that ‘he is scarcely dependent upon the earth’).Footnote ⁴⁰

Of all philosophers, it is Diogenes who is most identified with the cloak. His decision to live as simply as possible led him to reject all other clothing — and indeed covering — as superfluous. Day or night, he could be found wrapped in the same ragged cloak.Footnote ⁴¹ As the distinctive mark of his way of life, it was adopted by his followers and frequently mocked by comedians.Footnote ⁴² An echo of this association may inform Tertullian's enigmatic line that ‘the chameleon is a little living skin’ (‘Camaeleon pellicula uiuit’). Pellicula carries a range of meanings, but they are all joined by the idea of a detachable outer covering: the rind of a fruit or the hide of an animal. It can carry a sense of disguise or, indeed, of deception.Footnote ⁴³ Tertullian might well be poking fun at the philosopher, as someone wholly identified with his outer garment.

These parallels are suggestive and may have informed Tertullian's sketch. In the section of the speech that follows, he mentions Diogenes by name, and references to this colourful philosopher appear in his other writings.Footnote ⁴⁴ But the joke does not depend upon our recognising them. More important than any particular parallel is the general sense that these are the sorts of things that philosophers do. They live a life of retirement in which they spend their time prying into everything. They have an impressive name and are quite puffed up, but are unimpressive physical specimens, since they nourish themselves frugally on readily available kinds of foods and do not exercise vigorously.

When we look elsewhere in Tertullian's work, we find evidence in support of these associations. The creature's lethargic slowness, which Tertullian emphasises so strongly (‘Hebes, fessus, … stupens’), finds an echo in his description of philosophers. All philosophers, he claims, glory in quietness. To repose ‘they give the name of pleasure; in it they have their bliss; in it they find entertainment’.Footnote ⁴⁵ Epicurus, in particular, is repeatedly characterised by lethargy (stupor).Footnote ⁴⁶ And where else might one encounter a proponent of the Garden school than half-hidden under some foliage?Footnote ⁴⁷ Mocking the claim of the pre-Socratic philosopher, Empedocles, that he remembered his previous incarnations as a bush and a fish, Tertullian asks: ‘Why not rather a melon, seeing that he was such a fool; or a chameleon, given how puffed up he was?’Footnote ⁴⁸ For this, he summarises, is the way of philosophy, it takes common truths ‘and inflates them in order to glorify its own art’.Footnote ⁴⁹ Similar sentiments recur in this same treatise: he mocks the ‘swollen’ nature of philosophers and their habit of wearing ‘even more inflated clothing’ (‘uestis inflatior’), and imagines that if the pallium could speak, it would make an appeal precisely on the basis that ‘a much better life can be enjoyed in a secluded place than in full view’.Footnote ⁵⁰

Once we get the joke, we can see why Tertullian draws attention to the creature's grandiose name — which is Greek, moreover — he means not just chamaeleon, but also philosophus. The surprise of finding a philosopher disguised as a chameleon is certainly funny, and seems to endow his earlier promise that ‘when you stumble upon it … you will immediately laugh’ (‘At cum offenderis … ridebis illico’) with new meaning. But what is the purpose of this humour? In order to appreciate its function, we must consider its context.

III THE POINT OF RIDDLES

The sequence of animals, in which the chameleon figures, brings to conclusion a lengthy opening argument that the world is characterised by change.Footnote ⁵¹ To support this claim, Tertullian presents proof from various domains. He canvasses philosophical and historical theory and offers scientific evidence. After discussing geological and seasonal changes, as well as the shifts brought about by war and migration, he cites the examples of the peacock, snake, hyena, stag and chameleon as proof that ‘creatures also change their appearance if not their clothing’ (‘mutant et bestiae pro ueste formam’). The rationale for this extended overview is given in the next section, which begins: ‘Much had to be said in order to arrive well prepared at the human being’ (‘Multa dicendum fuit ut ad hominem praestructim perueniretur’).

The statement seems clear, both in sense and in syntax, but it raises a question. In what way does this information prepare listeners for what follows? True, the topic of change continues, as Tertullian traces the shifts in clothing from the first human, born ‘certainly naked and unclothed’ (‘nudus certe et inuestis’), to the first rude coverings of leaves and skins, through the increasingly sophisticated technologies of cloth production (yielding first wool, then linen, marine fabric and silk), to the luxurious refinements introduced by tailoring and decorative adornment. Apart from agreement with the general premise that ‘things change’, however, this survey does not rely on the preceding discussion. The sequence of animal examples, in particular, seems unnecessary and the level of detail found in the description of the chameleon completely otiose. Again, we could decide that the erudition is marshalled simply for the purpose of display. But as an explanation, this seems unsatisfactory, insofar as it cannot account for the obvious selectivity guiding Tertullian's choice and development of these examples. To understand their contribution — how they prepare the audience for what follows — we must draw back and consider the sequence as a whole.

The peacock, snake, hyena, stag and chameleon are arranged in chiastic order to illustrate different kinds of change: the first and last involve alteration in colour, the second and fourth changes in age, and the central third, a switch in sex. The length of the descriptions also varies considerably. A single sentence suffices for the hyena and stag, whereas the peacock and snake each receive a short paragraph; the description of the chameleon is longer than all the others combined. The rhetorical artfulness of these sketches has often been noted, but far less appreciated is their deliberately paradoxical quality. It would be rewarding to examine each of these in turn,Footnote ⁵² but for reasons of space, we will consider only the peacock, since it is paired with the chameleon.

Peacocks were admired by the Romans for their beauty and apparently also for their taste.Footnote ⁵³ Pliny's and Aelian's accounts of the bird include exotic lore, but Tertullian focuses entirely on its appearance.

Elegantly compressed, the description — like that of the chameleon — includes unusual words: both Greek terms (cataclistis, conchylio, patagio, syrmate) as well as rare Latin forms (pauo,Footnote ⁵⁴ inauratior, multicolor). Such technical virtuosity was typical of the Second Sophistic and strongly recalls Apuleius’ Florida, which includes descriptions of an eagle and a parrot.Footnote ⁵⁵ But unlike the work of his older contemporary, Tertullian's description is presented as a paradox.

Its structure, as Hunink observes, is dominated by the element of three: three closely parallel clauses compare the feathers of three parts of the bird (its neck, back and tail) to components of luxurious dress (purple-dyed cloth, decorative borders and theatrical train). These are followed by a string of three adjectives referring to colour. But it is the third part of the description that commands our attention. Its syntax, unlike that of the preceding clauses, is simple (‘nunquam ipsa, semper alia, etsi semper ipsa quando alia’), but its formulation notably paradoxical. With only the smallest of changes, it could be reformulated as a riddle: ‘what is never itself, but always other, yet always itself when other?’

Unlike modern riddles, of course, it begins with a straightforward identification of the answer. This admission might seem to obviate the comparison, were we not to remember that Latin literature enjoyed precisely these kinds of witty puzzles. The fact that Martial's epigrams begin by announcing the object or animal in no way detracts from an enjoyment of the concise and often paradoxical formulation that follows. As a case in point, consider his xenia on dormice:

Without the title, nothing would distinguish it from a riddle; and even with it, the source of its pleasure, which derives from the process of fitting an obscure formulation to a quotidian reality, is the same. Another epigram, this time on a kind of cloth, poses its puzzle more directly:

The humour of the conundrum lies in a bilingual pun: ‘amethyst’, in the context of textile production, indicates a violet colour derived from molluscs; but etymologically, the word stems from the Greek for ‘unintoxicated’.Footnote ⁵⁸ Here, far from detracting from the humour, the title is itself part of the riddle.Footnote ⁵⁹

The fact, then, that we know from the outset that Tertullian's description pertains to the peacock does not wholly eliminate the puzzle; indeed, in some ways, it enhances it. For even if we grant that the pigmentation of the peacock's plumage is startlingly intense, it is still unclear in what way it is ‘never itself, always other, yet always itself when other’. It is possible that he is referring to the iridescence of its feathers, the fact that they shimmer and shift in colour depending on the light. Other Latin writers certainly noted the phenomenon and used images of jewels or stars to express it.Footnote ⁶⁰ But Tertullian's metaphors are drawn from the world of textiles and concentrate on the luxurious rather than the luminous nature of the plumage: its deep purple hue, gilded border and sumptuous train. This last element attracts attention with its use of a Greek technical term, syrmate, which designates the long, trailing costume traditionally worn by tragic actors. The overtly theatrical implication of the word colours our sense of the preceding elements: all three descriptors could belong to the stage.Footnote ⁶¹

By the time of Tertullian, classical tragedy had been largely supplanted by the pantomime, in which a single actor played all the roles. His costume consisted of a long robe that reached at least to his ankles, but might trail on the ground.Footnote ⁶² Usually made of silk and brightly coloured, it often had a decorative border or golden fringe.Footnote ⁶³ On top of this outfit, he added a pallium. This last element seems, of course, particularly relevant to Tertullian's argument, but he does not mention it.Footnote ⁶⁴ Nonetheless, the suspicion that the description is operating on two levels increases with the following line: ‘never itself, always other, yet always itself when other’. For this was the essence of the pantomime's artistry. By altering his bodily gestures and manipulating his costume, the dancer could shift his appearance completely: he was defined by constant change.Footnote ⁶⁵ Tertullian, it would seem, is once again teasing his listeners. In the same manner that he concealed a philosopher inside the chameleon, he has hidden an actor within a bird.Footnote ⁶⁶

The other animal descriptions, although far less elaborated, are similarly structured around a central paradox. Each poses a conundrum that the audience must figure out for themselves. It is this form, I suggest, rather than any content, that is crucial to Tertullian's authorial purpose. Once his listeners have grasped the structure, they are ‘well-prepared’ (praestructim) for what follows. They can enter into the game. They will expect puzzling twists and anticipate hidden meanings. In the very next section of the speech, Tertullian tests their ability.

As Hunink notes, the description is cast in deliberately general terms. The names Adam and Eve do not appear, and ‘some words (quoquo primodio; certe; figulo) and elements (illicit wisdom) create the impression that it is not one particular story that is referred to, but elements common to various ancient traditions’.Footnote ⁶⁷ Even the woman's role in the untimely seizure of wisdom, so often laboured by Tertullian, goes unmentioned; the description could refer to Prometheus’ theft. Nor is the notion of a primordial offence or of animal skin clothing exclusively biblical. And yet there is an unmistakable clue: there are no comparable stories about the first human being created ‘naked and unclothed’. The connection to Genesis is deliberately obscured, but still apparent to those prepared to puzzle out the clues. Similar hints of the author's Christian affiliation punctuate the speech. To those attentive to the underlying structure, the final revelation of a hidden figure comes less as a surprise, than as a delightful confirmation of a sustained joke.

In addition to illuminating the nature of the work, the riddling format clarifies the identity of the speaker. He is someone who poses conundrums. This activity may strike us as characteristic of rhetoricians, and certainly the parallels with Apuleius and Martial bespeak literary influence. But in contemporary literary portraits, the behaviour is also typical of philosophers. They are often shown challenging their listeners by speaking obscurely and imposing upon them puzzles and other conundrums.Footnote ⁶⁸ In these situations, as Anna Potamiti notes, the ‘norms of interrogation are reversed’. The person posing questions is not actually seeking information. He already knows the answer.Footnote ⁶⁹ Instead of exposing his ignorance, the riddle tests his listeners’ cognitive ability. It assesses their mental flexibility, their ability to move between alien codes and discover similarities in disparate terms of comparison.Footnote ⁷⁰ By speaking in paradoxes and riddles, Tertullian presents himself not only as an accomplished rhetorician, but also as a philosopher, that is as a person worthily clad in the pallium. In retrospect, much of the address seems designed to impress this same point upon the audience: not only can the speaker discourse learnedly on the origin of things, but he expounds the virtue of living according to nature, attacks the proponents of other philosophical schools and censures immorality.

The speech ends, as already noted, with a further unexpected twist: that the pallium now clothes a Christian. Like the chameleon, Tertullian shows that he too can ‘play with his own skin’ (‘de corio suo ludere’). This revelation of a hidden identity leaves listeners with the task of bridging a logical gap; they must figure out how it applies to what they have previously heard. Looking back, there have been hints along the way. But it is the words of the personified pallium that provide perhaps the most important clue. For with philosophers, Christians shared the conviction that true adherence was marked less by any explication of belief than by a distinctive manner of life.Footnote ⁷¹ And this is the gist of the pallium's final speech: ‘Truly, even if eloquence were to fall silent … the clothing itself would cry out. A philosopher, in short, is heard when he is seen. At my appearance, I make vices blush.’Footnote ⁷² The verb suffundo recalls the description of the chameleon's most startling trait, namely, its ability to change colour: that it is ‘blushed’ by its surroundings. The parallel is teasing. Tertullian, it would seem, is gesturing towards the solution to the puzzle he himself raised: ‘How is the chameleon like the pallium?’ Both are living skins; but one is blushed by that which it encounters, while the other makes those who encounter it blush.Footnote ⁷³