161 Representations of travel motivation stressing God as Elias’ guide (καθοδηγήσας) yet another time. Moreover, his obedience to God and thereby his piety is underlined. As in the previous example, the divine communication is twofold: Elias is told to return to his fatherland and he receives a vision of a mountain upon which he is to found a monastery. The hagiographer emphasises that Elias’ immediate departure for Sicily after the revelation reveals his obedience to God. The fulfilment of the other part of the divine communication is narrated only after several other episodes. The narrative relates Elias’ arrival in Sicily immediately after the episode of his departure in Antioch, but it takes another eight chapters and many travels until the audience learns about the foundation of the monastery on the revealed mountain. Boarding a ship at Corfu, Elias reaches Calabria and founds the monastery together with his disciple Daniel, who by then had joined Elias. The hagiographer explicitly recalls the earlier divine command by narrating that they went to ‘the place revealed to saint Elias when he was in Antioch, and which was called Salinas’ and by using the exact same words for the monastery: the ascetical παλαίστρα or wrestling school.549 So like the previous example, the journeys to Sicily and to Salinas are divinely motivated and the motivation is emphasised by referring back to an earlier narrated divine revelation. The case of Rome is similar to Elias’ travels to the Holy Land: first the hagiographer represents Elias as having a desire to go to Rome, but the direct incentive to undertake the journey is represented in the form of a divine vision telling Elias to go. The case differs in that the vision is narrated only after many events happened in between and Elias does not act upon his own intent immediately. Moreover, the divine message does not come from God directly but from an apparition of Peter and Paul.550 Elias’ initial desire to go to Rome is narrated after an adventurous episode of imprisonment in Butrint.551 The hagiographer represents Elias’ and Daniel’s intent to leave Butrint not as a desire to reach safer lands, but he instead focusses on a pious motivation to travel. Namely, Elias wanted to go to Rome ‘for the sake of praying’ (ἠβουλήθησαν εἰς τὴν Ῥώμην ἀπελθεῖν χάριν προσευχῆς).552 They were hindered, however, and traversed to Corfu instead. The hagiographer does not mention the details, perhaps because he did not think it was relevant. Perhaps the audience was to understand that the hindrance was caused by weather conditions or available ships. Contemporary travellers must have been familiar with these kinds of problems. We could speculate that for this reason the 549 ἐλθόντες ἐν τῷ δηλωθέντι τῷ ὁσίῳ Ἠλίᾳ τόπῳ, ὅτε ἦν ἐν Ἀντιοχείᾳ, τῷ ἐπονομαζομένῳ Σαλίναις, τὴν ἀσκητικὴν παλαίστραν ἐπήξαντο; Life of Elias the Younger 30, lines 593-596. At first the παλαίστρα seems to be purposed only for ascetical exercise by Elias and Daniel (‘in which Elias and Daniel, while being solitary, cultivated the divine paradise of virtues’ ch. 30), but during the narrative it becomes clear that more monks start to live there, it is referred to as monastêrion (ch. 36) and the complex includes a chapel or oratory (euktyrion; ch. 38). 550 Peter and Paul are particularly appropriate biblical figures to tell Elias that he should go to Rome, since their tombs were pilgrimage sites in Rome. 551 Elias and Daniel would have been imprisoned in Butrint, because a general suspected them to be spies. The general, however, almost instantly died after their capture (which is presented as a miracle), and Elias and Daniel could be freed. Life of Elias the Younger 28. 552 This suggests a pilgrimage motive. Life of Elias the Younger 29. 3
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