157 Representations of travel motivation text, may have made for an exciting listening experience.535 The many travels of Elias might have contributed to its appeal. While the text only had a moderate (traceable) transmission, Elias as a saintly personality did gain some renown. That is, Elias is mentioned in various other hagiographies of southern Italian saints. This demonstrates some popularity of the saint and is evidence for a vibrant intertextual literary culture in the region, at least up to the eleventh century.536 The four surviving manuscripts all originate from southern Italian monasteries.537 This suggests that Elias’ veneration remained mostly restricted to this region. 3.5.2 Representation of travel motivations in the Life of Elias the Younger The first half of the Life is dominated by many travels. The account of these travels can be summarised as follows (see also appendix 7): born in Enna, Elias started out on his first journey as a child when he was captured during an Aghlabid attack on Sicily. Whilst on sea, the captives were rescued by a Byzantine ship and brought back to Sicily. Three years later Elias was captured again, enslaved and brought to North Africa. After some decades he was set free and travelled to Jerusalem. There he visited the biblical sites and became a monk, travelled to various other biblical places in Palestine and then to Sinai, where he stayed in a monastic community. After three years, he went to Alexandria, where he healed people and visited various shrines in the region, including the popular pilgrimage site of St. Menas. From Alexandria he set out towards Persia to venerate Old Testament sites and relics, but changed direction due to a revolt and reached Antioch instead. From there he travelled back to Sicily, first to Palermo and then to Reggio (in Calabria) and Taormina. At Taormina a disciple, named Daniel, joined Elias and from then onwards accompanied him. When Elias foresaw the capture of Taormina by the Aghlabids,538 they left the city again and travelled to the Peloponnese, Butrint, Corfu and finally to Calabria. In the second half of the narrative Elias is represented as mostly staying at the monastery that he founded in Salinas in Calabria. Occasional journeys do still feature. The narrative includes a few instances of regional travel and even some longer journeys, such as to Rome on pilgrimage, to Patras to avoid an upcoming Aghlabid attack in Reggio and to 535 Mario Re even understands the Life to be comprised of two distinct parts, the first of which ‘has all the features of an adventurous hagiographic romance’. While I still see many of the events described in the Life, including in the first have, to correspond to the historical context that we know from other sources, some of the events are indeed dramatic (and make for a compelling story), such as the capture of Elias during Arab raids. Some stories in particular betray the author’s desire to craft an entertaining story, such as a story of Elias’ period in enslavement, which is quite similar to stories from Greek mythology (e.g., that of Phaedra and Hyppolytus; in Elias’ Life, Elias is falsely accused of adultery, after not going into the advances of his master’s wife). The hagiographer must indeed have intended to write a compelling story, while also aiming to illustrate Elias’ sainthood throughout. Re (2008). 536 In the Life of Nikodemos of Kellarana and in the Life of Elias Speleotes; also according to the Life of Filaretus, Filaretus would have entered Elias’ monastery, which apparently was still functioning in the eleventh century. See entry for Elias der Jüngere in PmBZ 21639; Oldfield (2014), pp. 35; 43. 537 Listed and discussed in Rossi Taibbi (1962), pp. xxiv–xxxii as: Messina, Bibliotheca Universitaria, cod. 29, cc. 190r204v (M); Napoli, Biblioteca Nazionale, cod. II A. A. 26, cc. 251r-282v (N); Bruxelles, Bibliothèque de la Société des Bollandistes, cod. Boll. 196, cc. 183r-220r (B); Palermo, Bibliotheca Nazionale, ms. II E 15, cc. 90r-125v (P). 538 This would be the defeat of Taormina by the Aghlabids in 881. The Byzantine general mentioned in the Life, Barsakios, is also known from other sources. See the entry for Barsakios in Lilie et al. (2013e) (= PmBZ 20819). 3
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