The Snake-Legged Goddess, also referred to as the Anguipede Goddess, was the ancestor-goddess of the Scythians according to the Scythian religion.
Name The "Snake-Legged Goddess" or "Anguiped Goddess" is the modern-day name of this goddess, who is so called because several representations of her depict her as a goddess with snakes or tendrils as legs.
History
Origin The Snake-Legged Goddess and her role as the foremother of the Scythians had early origins and pre-dated the contacts of the Scythians with Mediterranean religions that influenced the cult of the Great Goddess Artimpasa to whom the Snake-Legged Goddess was affiliated. This goddess appears to have originated from an ancient Iranic tradition. The snakes which formed the limbs and grew out of the shoulders of Snake-Legged Goddess also linked her to the Zoroastrian chthonic monster Aži Dahāka, of whom a variant appears in later Persian literature as the villainous figure Zahhak, who had snakes growing from each shoulder.
West Asian influence During the 7th century BCE, the Scythians expanded into West Asia, during which time the Scythian religion was influenced by the religions of the peoples of the Fertile Crescent. Consequently, the Snake-Legged Goddess was influenced by the Levantine goddess ʿAtarʿatah in several aspects, resulting in a strong resemblance between the two goddesses, such as their monstrous bodies, fertility and vegetation symbolism, legends about their love affairs, and their respective affiliations and near-identification to Artimpasa and Aphroditē Ourania. Another influence might have been the Graeco-Colchian goddess Leukothea, whose mythology as a woman who was turned into a goddess after throwing herself into the sea due to a curse from Hēra connects her to ʿAtarʿatah, and whose sanctuary at Vani had columns crowned with female protomēs emerging from akanthos leaves similar to those of the Snake-Legged Goddess.
Greek contact The Greek poet Hesiod might have mentioned the Snake-Legged Goddess in the Theogony, where he assimilated her to the monstrous figure of Echidna from Greek mythology. In Hesiod's narrative, "Echidna" was a serpent-nymph living in a cave far from any inhabited lands, and the god Targī̆tavah, assimilated to Heracles, killed two of her children, namely the hydra of Lerna and the lion of Nemea. Thus, in this story, "Heracles" functioned as a destroyer of evils and a patron of human dwellings located in place where destruction had previously prevailed. The Snake-Legged Goddess is however most famously known from the various Graeco-Roman retellings of the Scythian genealogical myth, in which she unites with the god Targī̆tavah to become the mother of the first ancestors of the Scythians and their kings.
Cult
Functions The Scythian Snake-Legged Goddess was a primordial ancestress of humanity who was associated to the life-giving principle but also possessed a chthonic nature, due to which her depictions were placed in Scythian tombs. The status of the Snake-Legged Goddess as the fore-mother of the Scythians associated her with the cult of the ancestors, and, being the controller of the life cycle, was also a granter of eternal life for the deceased. Some images of Snake-Legged Goddess were discovered in burials, thus assigning both a chthonic and vegetal symbolism to this goddess, which follows the motif of vegetal deities possessing chthonic features. The Snake-Legged Goddess was also a vegetation goddess of the Tree of Life, and as well as a potnia thērōn as attested by the presence of felines near her in Scythian art and the Luristan bronzes. The depictions of the Snake-Legged Goddess on Scythian horse harness decorations imply that she was also a patroness of horses, which might be connected with the love affair between Targī̆tavah and the goddess beginning after she had kept his mares in the genealogical myth.
Affiliation to Artimpasa Reflecting influence from Levantine cults in which the Great Goddess was often accompanied by a minor semi-bestial goddess, the Snake-Legged Goddess, who was also the Scythian foremother, was affiliated to Artimpasa. The Snake-Legged Goddess was so closely affiliated to Artimpasa that it bordered on identification to the point where the images of the two goddesses would almost merge, but nevertheless remained distinct from each other. This distinctiveness is more clear in how Artimpasa was assigned the role of the king's sexual partner and the divine power of the kings who granted royal power, but was not considered the foremother of the people, and in how neither the Bosporan kings of Sarmatian ancestry nor the Graeco-Roman authors' records assigned Aphroditē or Artimpasa as the Scythians' ancestor.
Association to Targī̆tavah The Snake-Legged Goddess might have been associated with Targī̆tavah in the latter's role as the father of her three sons and his tentatively suggested role of a snake-god identified by the Greeks of Pontic Olbia with Achilles Pontarkhēs (lit. 'Achilles, Lord of the Pontic Sea'). Sailors had to pass through this cult site of Targī̆tavah-Achilles at the island of Borysthenes to reach Cape Hippolaus, where was located a sacred grove to the Greek goddess Hecate, with whom the Greeks had assimilated the Scythian Snake-Legged Goddess.
Mythology The Snake-Legged appears in all variations of the Scythian genealogical myth as the Scythian fore-mother who sires the ancestor and first king of the Scythians with Targī̆tavah. The Snake-Legged appears in all variations of the Scythian genealogical myth with consistent traits, including her being the daughter of either a river-god or of the Earth and dwelling in a cave, as well as her being half-woman and half-snake. Diodorus of Sicily's description of this goddess in his retelling of the genealogical myth as an "anguiped earth-born maiden" implies that she was a daughter of Api, likely through a river-god, and therefore was both chthonic and connected to water, but was however not identical with Api herself and instead belonged to a younger generation of deities of "lower status" who were more actively involved in human life.
Iconography
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