January 28, 2015

          Lions frequently adorn monuments and other forms of public art in Puerto Rico. The depictions are of African lions, with manes.

Lions in a plaza just to the south the capitol building, Old San Juan.

Apparently, in historic times, lions populated all Africa, Asia to as far as the Indian sub-continent and southern Europe, and were therefore known to the early Europeans. Herodotus and Aristotle wrote of their presence in Northern Greece. The mythical and powerful Nemean lion, the offspring of Typhon (or Orthrus) and Echidna, lived near the Peloponnesian town of Nemea.

It was said the Nemean lion would take a woman from a local village as hostage, and wait for the town’s warriors to search for her. The woman would feign injury and lure a would-be savior into a cave. The woman would then transform herself into a lion, devour the warrior, and offer his bones to Hades.

 The Nemean lion was such a scourge that Eurystheus, the King of Tiyrns, made its death the first of Heracles’ twelve labors. Heracles (aka Hercules) managed to accomplish this task even though the lion was protected by its golden fur, impenetrable to arrows and other human weapons. In fact, after managing to slay the lion, Heracles had to use the lion’s own claws to skin it, after which he used the pelt for his own purposes. The Nemean lion is perhaps the model for the constellation Leo, and therefore of great interest to anyone born with that birth sign.

You might think the Nemean lion gave birth to the word nemesis, but you’d be wrong. Nemesis comes from another Greek myth. She (also known as Rhamnousia or Rhamnusia or Adrasteia) appeared whenever a mere mortal showed signs of hubris and needed a smack-down from the Gods. Nemesis aside, the Nemean lion is an example of an evil temptress, like Jezebel of the Old Testament and the Temptress of the Rhine, to name just two. It is sobering to wonder why so many ancient cultures had stories of seductive temptresses leading innocent men to their demise. It is certainly an oft-told tale.

The idea of the lion came early to the New World, probably in the person of the conquistador and explorer Juan Ponce de León. His was an old family, from what is now the province of Valladolid, in northwestern Spain. The independent Kingdom of León (Lion) was in existence then. In 1235, an early ancestor married Aldonza Alfonso, an illegitimate daughter of King Alfonso IX of León, and soon their descendants became the Ponce of León.

Juan Ponce de León was born in 1474 or 1475, and fought in the campaigns against the Emirate of Granada that resulted, in 1492, in the recapture of all of southern Spain from the Moors. His military skills no longer needed, he signed on, along with various other settlers, to sail with Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World. The expedition landed in Hispaniola in November 1493, and soon Juan Ponce de Leon became governor of the eastern province of Higuey. This was in great part due to his leading Spaniards against rebellious Tainos in what became known as the Higuey massacre.

San Juan Bautista (now known as Puerto Rico), the large island to the east of Hispaniola, soon captured his interest. He learned from Tainos visiting his settlement of gold and fertile land there. One Vicente Yáñez Pinzón had been given a charter from the Spanish crown to explore it, but the charter expired. Juan Ponce de León explored the island in 1508, and indeed found gold. He was named governor of the island in 1508, an action endorsed by Ferdinand II in 1509.

Political intrigues ensued. Diego Colón, son of Cristóbal Colón (the Spanish form of Christopher Columbus, who had died in 1506), sued the Crown to regain the rights and privileges granted his father, which the Crown had come to realize were perhaps too generous. This made Juan Ponce de Leon’s position as Governor untenable, and, in spite of various interventions from Ferdinand, Juan Cerón took over as Governor of San Juan Bautista, in November 1511.

Ferdinand, wishing to reward Juan Ponce de León for his loyal service, offered to let him explore, at his own expense, to the northwest, where it was thought as yet uncharted islands existed. In return, Ponce de León would be granted rights to those new lands. The expedition resulted in the discovery of Florida, but, on his third trip there, in a battle with the Calusa Indians, he was wounded by an arrow to his thigh. The expedition returned to Havana, where Ponce de Leon died, in July 1521. He was interred in San Juan, in the crypt of the San Jose Church, from 1559 to 1836, at which time his remains were transferred to the Cathedral of San Juan Bautista.

Ponce, now the second largest city in Puerto Rico, is named after Juan Ponce de León y Loayza, Juan Ponce de León’s great grandson. It is in Ponce that the idea of lions in public places is celebrated, especially around the Plaza las Delicias, in central Ponce. Local artists were commissioned to paint life-size fiberglass lions; the results are colorful, whimsical, fun. Here are some images of them.

            Ponce’s artistic powers that be did not ask me to participate. If they had, I would have done something like this.

What do you think?

 

References: See Wikipedia entries for Christopher Columbus, Ponce de Leon, Nemean Lion, Nemesis, and Ponce for more information. Image of Greek coins from Wikimedia Commons entry for Nemean Lion.