A truth without interest can be eclipsed by an exciting falsehood.
Aldous Huxley.
Throughout History, we can find numerous examples where it has been manipulated or misinterpreted, whether for political, social purposes, or simply because popular culture believed certain facts that were not actually true. In this article, we will present one of those historical hoaxes that was widely accepted in all of Europe for a long time: the False Beroso.
It all begins in the 15th century when a Dominican friar appears on the scene who will be known in Spain as Annio de Viterbo, developing his theological and literary career in Rome. There, in 1498, he publishes the work that will make him famous: the Commentaria super opera diversorum auctorum de antiquitatibus loquentium (Caballero López, 2002: 106).
These books, dedicated to the Catholic Monarchs, were focused on commenting on a series of original and unpublished works by authors from Antiquity, among whom we find one named Beroso of Chaldea, a priest in Babylon during the reign of the Seleucids. We know that he wrote Babiloniaká, a work aimed at introducing Babylonian culture to everyone and presenting all those kings prior to Alexander the Great (Mayer Burstein, 1978: 7-8).
However, it is not only Beroso who appears cited in Viterbo's work. We also have other authors –both historians and poets– from the Babylonian-Persian, Greek, and Roman spheres, as well as fragments of the Bible, which he uses to complement information provided by others (Caballero López, 2002: 108). The reason why this work is popularly known as the "Beroso" is simply because Beroso is cited more frequently than any other author (Caballero López, 2002: 107).
The Commentaria are divided into seventeen books, with the most famous being the twelfth one, dedicated to the kings and antiquities of Spain. In it, a list is shown of Spanish kings belonging to the lineage of Tubal, son of Japheth and grandson of Noah. The connection with these biblical characters was already traditional in Spain and other kingdoms, so the novelty lies in the rest of the monarchs referred to by the author: Ibero, Iubelda, Brygo, Tago, Beto, Geryon, Trigemino, Hispalus, Hispano, Hercules Lybius, Romulus, Palatius, Cacus, Erythreus, and Melicertes (Caro Baroja, 1992: 63). Many of these names can be related to place names or even legendary figures, such as Hispalus with Hispalis (modern Seville) or Hercules, referring to the well-known hero of Antiquity (Caro Baroja, 1992: 68).
In this way, the history of Spain was thus linked from its origin to biblical and mythical characters. This aimed to defend the primacy of the Spanish monarchy against its main competitors, such as the House of Valois in France (Ballester Rodríguez, 2013: 227). On the other hand, it also served to distance the Visigothic dynasty from the peninsula, which was labeled by Italian humanists as barbarians and "destroyers of the Roman Empire" (Ballester Rodríguez, 2013: 227).
As we had already hinted at the beginning of the article, this work was undoubtedly a forgery, but many believed in its content, spreading even to the rest of Europe. In Spain's case, we have the example of how Carlos V's chronicler, Florián de Ocampo, continues with the discourse and points Túbal as the figure introducing civilization and wisdom much earlier than Greeks and Romans, turning the Spanish population into superior to others (Ballester Rodríguez, 2013: 228). This leads to a gradual establishment of a new pejorative conception about the Visigothic monarchy, which is no longer seen as the model to be recovered, but rather as an extraneous monarchy that had replaced the true original dynasty, heir of Túbal (Ballester Rodríguez, 2013: 229).
Conclusions
Despite having skeptics from the start who doubted the veracity of Annio de Viterbo's books, it would take a long time for these to begin losing weight in Spanish historiography. Specifically, the myth about Noah's grandson will be present in school textbooks even until mid-twentieth century (Ballester Rodríguez, 2013: 241). This makes us reflect on how necessary critical and scientific thinking is in disciplines like History, as without it we would likely accept many more falsehoods today as true. Historical revisionism is essential, as it must analyze not only the content but also the different perspectives from which these data have been examined.
Bibliography
- Ballester Rodríguez, M. (2013). The lineage of Tubal: biblical narrative and national identity in Spain. History and Politics, 29, 219 – 246.
- Caballero López, J. A. (2002). Annio de Viterbo and Spanish historiography of the sixteenth century. In Humanism and Classical Tradition in Spain and America: VI Scientific Meeting on Spanish Humanists, 102 – 120.
- Caro Baroja, J. (1992). Falsifications of History (in relation to that of Spain). Barcelona: Seix Barral S.A., 63 – 68.
- Mayer Burstein, S. (1978). The babyloniaca of Berossus (Vol. 37). Malibu: Undena Publications, 6 – 8.
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