This is the fourth and final part of a four-part series. Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here, Part 3 is here; the outline of the series can be found at Part 1.
R’ Yosei - biblical prooftext #3: Hezekiah’s breaking of the bronze serpent provides another precedent for destroying an idol by crushing it - II Kings 18:4
אמר להן רבי יוסי,
והלא כבר נאמר:
״וכתת נחש נחשת אשר עשה משה״!
The baraita continues: R’ Yosei attempts to cite another proof that grinding an object of idol worship is sufficient, from Hezekiah’s destruction of Moses’ serpent, which was worshipped by the Jewish people in Hezekiah’s time.
R’ Yosei said to them:
But isn’t it already stated:
“And he broke into pieces1 the bronze serpent that Moses had made;
as until those days the children of Israel sacrificed to it” (II Kings 18:4)?
This indicates that breaking an object of idol worship into pieces suffices.
Rabbis - Reject the proof: the bronze serpent belonged to Moses, and another person’s worship cannot render someone else’s property prohibited; Hezekiah destroyed it only to stop Israel from worshipping it - Numbers 21:8
אמרו לו:
משם ראיה?!
הרי הוא אומר
״ויאמר ה׳ אל משה:
עשה לך שרף״,
The Rabbis said to him:
You seek to bring proof from there?!
Doesn’t it state in the verse:
“And YHWH said to Moses:
Make you a fiery serpent,
and set it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass, that everyone that is bitten, when he sees it, shall live” (Numbers 21:8)?
— ״לך״
משלך,
ואין אדם אוסר דבר שאינו שלו,
והתם בדין הוא דכתותי לא הוה צריך.
The term “make you”
is interpreted to mean that God commanded Moses: Make the serpent from your property.
Consequently, the serpent belonged to Moses, and the principle in such a case is that a person does not render forbidden an item that is not his.
Therefore, despite worshipping the serpent, the Jewish people could not render it a forbidden object of idol worship, and by right (בדין), it was not necessary to demolish it there.
אלא,
כיון דחזא דקא טעו ישראל בתריה,
עמד וכיתתו.
Rather,
despite the fact that the serpent did not have the halakhic status of an object of idol worship, since Hezekiah saw that the Jewish people were straying (טעו) after it,
he arose and demolished it.2
R’ Yosei - biblical prooftext #4: David’s treatment of the Philistine idols implies that he scattered them to the wind - II Samuel 5:21
אמר להם,
והלא כבר נאמר:
״ויעזבו שם את עצביהם
וישאם דוד ואנשיו״,
R’ Yosei said to the Rabbis, citing another proof for his opinion:
But isn’t it already stated:
“And they left their images there,
and David and his men took them away [va-yissa’em]” (II Samuel 5:21)?
Rav Yosef - Supports the interpretation of va-yissa’em as “dispersal” by comparison with Isaiah’s language of winnowing and wind carrying material away - Isaiah 41:16
ומאי משמע דהאי ״וישאם דוד״ לישנא דזרויי הוא?
כדמתרגם רב יוסף:
״תזרם ורוח תשאם״,
ומתרגמינן:
תזרינון
ורוח תטלטלינון.
And from where may it be inferred that the meaning of this formulation: “Va-yissa’em David,” is winnowing, i.e., scattering in the wind?
It is as Rav Yosef translates the verse:
“Tizrem veruaḥ tissa’em” (Isaiah 41:16),
and we translate (מתרגמינן) the verse into Aramaic as follows:
“You shall scatter them (תזרינון),
and the wind shall carry them away.”
Apparently, this way of disposing of idolatrous objects is sufficient.
Rabbis - Reject R’ Yosei’s interpretation because the parallel account says David burned the idols; vayyissa’em therefore means literally that he carried them away - I Chronicles 14:12
אמרו לו:
משם ראיה?!
הרי הוא אומר
״וישרפו באש״,
ומדלא כתיב ״וישרפם וישאם״,
שמע מינה ״וישאם״ ממש.
The Rabbis said to him:
You seek to bring proof from there?!
Doesn’t it state with regard to the same incident:
“And they left their gods there;
and David gave an order, and they were burned with fire” (I Chronicles 14:12)?
And from the fact that it is not written here: “And they burned them va-yissa’em,”
learn from it that the word va-yissa’em is not referring to scattering in the wind, but rather it should be understood literally,
i.e., David and his men took the idols away; and it does not mean that they demolished and scattered them.
Rav Huna - Reconciles the accounts of David’s treatment of the idols: before Ittai the Gittite arrived they had to be burned; afterward Ittai could annul their idolatrous status and they could simply be taken - II Samuel 5:21; I Chronicles 14:12
מכל מקום,
קשו קראי אהדדי.
The Talmud asks: In any case,
the verses contradict each other.
The two biblical accounts (in II Samuel and I Chronicles respectively) with regard to David’s disposal of the idols seem inconsistent: One states that his men took them away or scattered them, while the other recounts that they burned them.
כדרב הונא,
דרב הונא רמי:
כתיב
״ויאמר דוד, וישרפו באש״,
וכתיב
״וישאם״
The Talmud answers in accordance with the resolution of Rav Huna,
as Rav Huna raises a contradiction between the verses, as follows:
It is written:
“And they left their gods there; and David gave an order, and they were burned with fire” (I Chronicles 14:12),
and it is also written:
“And David and his men took them away” (II Samuel 5:21).
לא קשיא,
כאן —
קודם שבא איתי הגיתי,
כאן —
לאחר שבא איתי הגיתי.
Rav Huna answers: It is not difficult:
In the interim, Ittai the Gittite, who was a non-Jew,3 arrived, and David commanded him to revoke the idolatrous status of the idols, as only non-Jews are capable of doing this.
Here, the verse that states that they burned the idols
describes their actions before Ittai the Gittite came,
whereas there, the verse that indicates that they simply carried them away
is referring to after Ittai the Gittite came and revoked their status as objects of idol worship, obviating the need to burn them.
Rav Nahman - Ittai the Gittite annulled the idolatrous status of the crown of Malcam, allowing David to benefit from it - II Samuel 12:30
דכתיב:
״ויקח את עטרת מלכם מעל ראשו
ומשקלה ככר זהב״,
Another difficulty is resolved by Ittai’s arrival; as it is written with regard to the Ammonite idol:
“And he took the crown of Malcam from off his head,
and its weight was a talent of gold,
and in it were precious stones; and it was set on David’s head” (II Samuel 12:30).
ומי שרי?
איסורי הנאה נינהו!
אמר רב נחמן:
איתי הגיתי בא וביטלה.
But is it permitted for David to wear the crown?
Isn’t it an object of idol worship and therefore under the category of items from which deriving benefit is prohibited?4
Rav Naḥman says:
Ittai the Gittite arrived and revoked its status as an object of idol worship.
Rav Yehuda citing Rav - The statement that Malcam’s crown weighed a talent means that it was fitting to rest on David’s head, not necessarily that David bore that full weight - II Samuel 12:30
משקלה ככר זהב,
היכי מצי מנח לה?
אמר רב יהודה, אמר רב:
ראויה לנוח על ראש דוד.
§ The Talmud discusses David’s crown.
The verse states: “And its weight was a talent of gold.”
As a talent is a very heavy weight,5 the Talmud asks: How could David place it on his head?
Rav Yehuda says that Rav says:
What is meant is not that it was actually placed on his head, but rather that it was fit to rest on David’s head,
i.e., it fit the size of his head.
R’ Yosei bar R’ Hanina - A lodestone suspended the heavy crown so that it appeared to rest on David’s head
רבי יוסי ברבי חנינא אמר:
אבן שואבת היתה בה,
דהות דרא לה.
Giving a different answer, R’ Yosei, son of R’ Ḥanina, says:
There was a lodestone6 in it
that would hold it up,
i.e., from which it was suspended. David sat and placed his head in it, giving the appearance that he was wearing it.
R’ Elazar - The crown contained a precious stone worth a talent of gold, rather than itself weighing a talent - II Samuel 12:30
רבי אלעזר אמר:
אבן יקרה היתה בה,
ששוה ככר זהב.
R’ Elazar says:
What is meant is not that it weighed a full talent of gold, but rather that there was a precious stone on it
that was worth a talent of gold.
“This I have had because I kept Your precepts” refers to the crown serving as testimony to David’s fitness for kingship - Psalms 119:56
״זאת היתה לי
כי פקודיך נצרתי״
מאי קאמר?
הכי קאמר:
בשכר שפקודיך נצרתי --
זאת היתה לי לעדות.
The Talmud asks with regard to the verse:
“This I have had,
as I have kept Your precepts” (Psalms 119:56):
What is it saying?
The Talmud answers that this is what the verse is saying:
As reward for the fact that I kept your precepts --
this crown was a testimony for me that I am fit to be king.
R’ Yehoshua ben Levi - The crown’s testimony was that it fit David exactly at the place of tefillin - Psalms 119:56
מאי עדותה?
אמר רבי יהושע בן לוי:
שהיה מניחה במקום תפילין
והולמתו.
What exactly was its testimony?
R’ Yehoshua ben Levi says:
It was that David would place the crown on his head on the spot where one dons tefillin,
and it fit him7 perfectly.
R’ Shmuel b. Yitzhak - There is enough room on the head for two sets of tefillin, allowing David’s crown and tefillin to occupy the relevant area
והא בעי אנוחי תפילין!
אמר רבי שמואל בר רב יצחק:
מקום יש בראש שראוי להניח בו שתי תפילין.
The Talmud asks: But how could he have worn the crown? Wasn’t he required to don tefillin?
R’ Shmuel bar Rav Yitzḥak says:
There is enough space on the part of the head that is fit for placing tefillin for one to place two tefillin.
״ויוציאו את בן המלך
ויתנו עליו את הנזר ואת העדות״,
״נזר״ —
זו כלילא,
Similarly, it is stated with regard to Joash:
“Then they brought out the king’s son,
and put upon him the crown [ha-nezer] and the testimony,
and made him king” (II Chronicles 23:11).
“Nezer”
is a crown (כלילא).
Rav Yehuda citing Rav - The royal crown was a miraculous “testimony” for the Davidic dynasty: it fit anyone genuinely suited for kingship and failed to fit anyone unfit - II Chronicles 23:11
״עדות״
אמר רב יהודה, אמר רב:
עדות הוא לבית דוד,
ש
כל הראוי למלכות
הולמתו,
וכל שאינו ראוי למלכות
אין הולמתו.
What was the “testimony”?
Rav Yehuda says that Rav says:
It is a testimony for the progeny of house of David,
that
anyone who is fit for kingship,
the crown fits him properly;
and anyone who is unfit for kingship,
the crown does not fit him properly.8
Rav Yehuda citing Rav - Adonijah’s “exalting himself” means that he tried to make the royal crown fit him, but it did not - I Kings 1:5
״ואדניה בן חגית מתנשא לאמר:
אני אמלך״,
אמר רב יהודה, אמר רב:
ש
מתנשא להולמו
ולא הולמתו.
Similarly, the verse states:
“Now Adonijah, son of Haggith, exalted himself, saying:
I will be king” (I Kings 1:5).
Rav Yehuda says that Rav says:
The term “exalted himself” teaches that
he sought to have the crown fit him —
but it did not fit him.
Baraita - Adonijah’s 50 runners were exceptional because their spleens had been removed and the soles of their feet hollowed out (to make them faster) - I Kings 1:5
״ויעש לו
רכב
ופרשים
וחמשים איש רצים לפניו״,
מאי רבותייהו?
תנא:
כולם
נטולי טחול
וחקוקי כפות הרגלים
היו.
The verse continues:
“And he [=Adonijah] set up for himself
chariots
and horsemen (פרשים)
and 50 people to run before him” (I Kings 1:5).
The Talmud asks: What is the novelty of these actions, since other wealthy people do the same, even if they are not the sons of kings with designs on the throne?
It is taught in a baraita that
what was unique was that the runners all
had their spleens (טחול) removed
and had the soles of their feet hollowed, i.e., flesh from their feet was removed,
and these two procedures enhanced their speed.9
Appendix - Notes on of the Comparative Late Antique Greco-Roman background of our sugya
The discussions in our sugya belong to a world in which images of gods, rulers, mythological figures, and celestial beings were ordinary features of the material environment. The Mishnah’s rules originated in Roman Eretz Yisrael, while the Babylonian Talmud was compiled considerably later under Sasanian rule and incorporates both Palestinian traditions and later Babylonian discussion. The Greco-Roman setting is therefore especially important for understanding the tannaitic material and many of the concrete objects discussed in the sugya. Scholars of rabbinic visual culture accordingly read rabbinic discussions of idolatry against the Roman and subsequently Christian visual environment of Eretz Yisrael.
Roman religion was highly image-rich. Statues of divinities occupied temples and sanctuaries; images of gods also appeared on smaller objects, jewelry, vessels, lamps, coins, reliefs, mosaics, and domestic furnishings. Roman provincial culture spread recognizable Greco-Roman images across the empire while allowing substantial local variation and combination with indigenous traditions. This background helps explain why the Mishnah does not simply prohibit every vessel bearing a mythological or celestial image. Such a rule would have treated an enormous range of ordinary decorated objects as presumptively cultic. Instead, the sugya repeatedly asks how one can distinguish an image made for worship from one made “merely for ornament.”
This distinction corresponds to an important feature of Greco-Roman material culture: the same iconographic figure could appear in very different settings and perform very different functions. An image of a deity could constitute the central cult image of a sanctuary, but divine and mythological figures could also decorate household objects, jewelry, tombs, mosaics, wall paintings, and utensils. The image type alone therefore did not necessarily identify the object’s function. A representation of Eros, for example, could occur on sculpture, sarcophagi, urns, altars, mosaics, wall paintings, jewelry, and lamps.
The sugya’s distinction between “respectable” and “degrading” locations becomes particularly intelligible in this environment. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel treats the placement of an image as evidence for its religious significance. Shmuel identifies jewelry, including bracelets, nose rings, and rings, as respectable settings, while pots, kettles, water-heaters, sheets, and towels are degrading settings. The criterion is therefore partly one of social treatment: An image worn prominently as ornament may plausibly carry prestige or religious significance; an image placed where it is covered with food, water, dirt, or ordinary bodily use has been materially subordinated to the object on which it appears.
This approach resembles the importance of location and treatment in Roman cult itself. A cult statue was distinguished partly by being installed in a sanctuary, occupying a privileged focal position, and receiving ritual attention. Roman cult images could be clothed, decorated with jewelry, carried in processions, presented with offerings, and otherwise treated as socially active embodiments of the divine. In late antiquity, cult statues at Rome were still adorned with jewelry. The rabbinic distinction between an honored and degraded image consequently reflects a broader Mediterranean assumption that the treatment of an object helps constitute its religious meaning.
The sun and moon likewise had an obvious place within Greco-Roman religious iconography: Celestial deities and personifications appeared throughout Roman art, while astrology made the zodiac and heavenly bodies familiar visual motifs. The sugya therefore separates two issues that could easily be confused: whether celestial beings may be worshipped, and whether representations of them may be made. Its repeated attempts to classify sun, moon, stars, constellations, angels, and other heavenly beings reflect a society in which celestial imagery was simultaneously religious, cosmological, astrological, and decorative.
The “nursing woman” and Sar Apis mentioned by R’ Yehuda provide an especially direct connection with the Hellenistic and Roman religious world. Sar Apis is generally identified with Serapis, the Greco-Egyptian deity whose cult became widespread throughout the Mediterranean. Isis and Serapis were among the most successful Egyptian-derived cults of the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and their images were common far beyond Egypt. Roman cities contained temples and representations of Isis, Serapis, their priests, and related divine figures.
The rabbinic “nursing woman” is very likely connected with the iconography of Isis nursing the infant Horus. A detailed study of Egyptian gods in rabbinic literature specifically associates the Talmud’s juxtaposition of the nursing woman and Serapis with Isis and Serapis. The same study notes evidence for the cult of Serapis in Roman Palestine, including representations and inscriptions connected with Jerusalem. Isis nursing Horus was a recognizable image type in the Roman world, and Isis’s cult circulated extensively throughout the empire.
The Talmud, however, interprets these foreign images through Jewish biblical history. The nursing figure becomes Eve, who metaphorically nurses the entire world; Sar Apis becomes Joseph, who sustained the world during the famine. This is a useful example of rabbinic interpretatio: recognizable pagan iconography is identified, but its significance is translated into a Jewish biblical framework. The identification of Serapis with Joseph had antecedents in Jewish engagement with Egyptian and Hellenistic traditions and was not simply invented by the Babylonian discussion.
The ring episodes likewise belong naturally in Roman material culture: Engraved and molded rings were widespread, and rings could carry portraits, divine figures, animals, symbols, and mythological scenes. The sugya is interested in a technical distinction between a protruding and recessed image: a protruding seal produces a recessed impression, while an engraved or recessed seal produces a raised impression. The halakhic analysis consequently presupposes the ordinary technology of signet rings and seals rather than monumental sculpture alone.
The case of the royal statue in the synagogue at Neharde’a in Babylonia illustrates another major category of contemporary visual culture: imperial and royal portraiture. Portrait statues of rulers occupied public spaces throughout the Roman and Persian world, and imperial images participated simultaneously in political representation, civic honor, and, in some contexts, imperial cult. Public statues were therefore especially difficult to classify through a simple religious/secular distinction. Portraiture and public statue display were integral features of civic space.
This helps explain the sugya’s treatment of “suspicion.” Shmuel objects to Rav Yehuda privately possessing a protruding human image, but Shmuel’s father and Levi can pray in a public building containing a royal statue because “the public is different.” Rabban Gamliel similarly counts as effectively public because crowds regularly attend him. The issue is therefore not simply the physical presence of a human figure: Its social setting determines what observers are likely to infer from it. A statue in a civic or public institutional setting need not imply that those using the building personally worship it.
The sugya’s extensive concern with destroying and annulling idols also has significant late-antique parallels. Greco-Roman cult statues were not regarded merely as interchangeable pieces of art; their installation, ritual treatment, and continued cult could give them a particular religious identity. Conversely, cult images could be removed, damaged, abandoned, repurposed, or destroyed. The late third through fifth centuries saw increasingly visible destruction and decommissioning of traditional cult images, including Christian attacks on pagan statues as well as less violent processes by which cult objects ceased to function as active idols.
The rabbinic category of bittul, annulment, is particularly interesting in this comparative context.10 In the sugya, physical destruction and loss of religious status are analytically separate. A valuable dragon ring can remain intact yet become permitted when a qualified non-Jew formally annuls it; conversely, an owner can despair of ever recovering an idol without thereby annulling its idolatrous character. The law assumes that an object’s status depends partly upon a human community continuing to recognize it as an object of worship. Physical integrity alone neither creates nor necessarily preserves idolatrous status.
This conception has a useful parallel in modern scholarship on Roman cult images, which emphasizes their “social lives”: an ordinary manufactured object could become a cult image through placement, ritual treatment, and recognition, and could eventually cease functioning as one when those relationships ended. The parallel should not be pressed into an assertion of direct borrowing. It shows instead that rabbinic law and Greco-Roman practice were addressing the same basic material problem: a statue or decorated object can remain physically the same while its social and religious identity changes.
The sugya’s biblical discussions of captured idols fit this framework as well. Roman warfare routinely involved the seizure and public display of statues and sacred objects from conquered peoples. Images of gods could become war booty and be relocated into the victor’s civic and religious landscape. Roman statue display itself had early connections with divine images taken as spoils. Against that background, the Talmud’s questions about David capturing Philistine idols and the crown of Malcam concern a familiar problem of ancient warfare: what happens to the sacred property of a defeated enemy?
Rabbinic law answers through its own categories. Before annulment, the captured idol remains prohibited and must be destroyed. After a non-Jew such as Ittai the Gittite annuls it, the object can enter a new economy of use and possession. Malcam’s crown can even pass from the sphere of pagan cult into the regalia of Davidic kingship. The same physical object has moved through several statuses: enemy cult object, prohibited property, annulled object, valuable spoil, and finally royal crown.
The late-antique context also cautions against imagining the rabbis as operating within a uniformly “pagan” Roman environment. By the fourth and fifth centuries, Christianization was radically transforming the public religious landscape, although traditional cults and images did not disappear at once. Pagan practices continued in parts of Palestine into late antiquity, while Christianity itself introduced new forms of sacred visual culture and new arguments concerning images. The rabbis therefore lived through a prolonged transformation from the traditional Greco-Roman cultic environment toward a predominantly Christian Roman/Byzantine one.
At the same time, archaeological evidence prevents a simple equation of rabbinic Judaism with comprehensive aniconism. Late-antique Jewish buildings themselves could contain extensive figurative art. Modern scholarship has therefore rejected older assumptions that Jews in this period simply avoided all human and animal representation. This accords well with the sugya itself. Its analysis assumes that “image,” “idol,” and “forbidden representation” are overlapping but nonidentical categories. Some images are prohibited because they were made for worship; some because Jews may not manufacture their forms; some become problematic because possession creates suspicion; others are permitted because their context demonstrates ornamental, degraded, educational, or public use.
Seen against the Greco-Roman and late-antique background, the detailed distinctions of our sugya address practical problems generated by an image-saturated society. Vessels, jewelry, signet rings, royal portraits, celestial diagrams, divine statues, Egyptian cult figures, captured sacred objects, and monumental public images could all confront Jews in ordinary economic and civic life. The sugya constructs rules for determining what kind of object one is looking at, what its makers and users intended it to be, what observers are likely to think it is, and whether its previous religious identity can be terminated. Its technical classifications are therefore closely connected to the material realities of the Roman and late-antique Mediterranean.
Steinsaltz explains:
since this demolishing was not done in order to fulfill the obligation to eradicate objects of idol worship, but merely to prevent its worship, breaking it into pieces was sufficient.
On this biblical story, see also the Mishnah in tractate Pesachim, in my “The Biblical King Hezekiah’s Six Controversial Actions: Three Approved, Three Not (Mishnah Pesachim 4:9)“, section “Three Approved“, list item #2, and see my note there.
Ittai’s demonym “Gittite” (גיתי) implies that he was a non-Israelite from the Philistine city of Gath.
איסורי הנאה - on this Talmudic technical term, see Hebrew Wikipedia, “איסור הנאה“.
On the weight of the talent (kikar), see Wikipedia, “Talent (measurement)“.
A biblical “talent” (Hebrew kikkar, ככר) of gold was roughly 30–35 kg (66–77 lb).
A common reconstruction is:
1 talent = 3,000 shekels
1 shekel ≈ 11.4 g
→ 1 talent ≈ 34.2 kg = 75.4 lb
So, as a useful rule of thumb: a biblical talent of gold weighed about 34 kg / 75 lb. (The exact weight varied somewhat by period and metrological system.)
For something worn on the head for more than a brief ceremonial moment, around 2–4 kg (5–10 lb) is near the upper end of what could reasonably be called wearable. Above about 5 kg (11 lb), it would become extremely uncomfortable and potentially unsafe for the neck unless specially supported or worn only briefly.
So a biblical “talent” of gold at roughly 34 kg (75 lb) could not realistically have been worn as an ordinary crown without some support mechanism.
אבן שואבת.
On this term, see my note in “Pt2 Elisha Narratives in II Kings 2-8, From Failure to Accompany to Failure to Reprove Gently: Jericho’s Youths, Bethel’s Bears, Gehazi, and the Principle of Measured Rejection (Sotah 46b-47a)“, on section “Using a magnetic stone to suspend Jeroboam’s calf“.
On this word, see Jastrow (modernized), entry “הָלַם”, sense #2:
2) to be attached, fit closely.
Avodah Zarah 44a:7 - מתנשא שביקש להוֹלְמוֹ ולא הוֹלַמְתּוֹ Manuscript Munich: (printed edition: שמתנשא לה׳, correct accordingly) - “ ‘he exalted himself’ (I Kings 1:5) means that he attempted to fasten (the crown to his head), but it would not fit him”
Note that this is an example of of a common trope of what might be called a “royal object recognition test”: the legitimate ruler is the person who can wield, wear, recover, or receive an object that pretenders cannot. The Talmudic crown is a version of this motif:
legitimate heir → royal object physically accommodates him
pretender → royal object rejects him
Odysseus’ bow is probably the best classical comparison: many candidates physically try the object; it refuses their efforts, while the legitimate ruler handles it naturally.
A later example is the famous Arthurian sword in the stone: only the rightful king can remove it.
The Talmud is explaining why Adonijah’s “50 men running before him” were remarkable. Merely having runners was normal royal display. (Compare the Roman cursores, footmen who ran before the vehicles of the rich to clear the road.) The baraita therefore interprets the verse as referring to specially modified elite runners:
נטולי טחול, “with their spleens removed.” The spleen was apparently thought to contribute to fatigue, heaviness, or pain during running. Removing it (=splenectomy) would therefore make a person a better endurance runner. This is related to older Greek and Roman medical/athletic traditions in which the spleen was sometimes blamed for side pain or reduced athletic performance.
חקוקי כפות הרגלים, literally “with the soles of their feet carved/hollowed out.” This apparently means that flesh was surgically removed or altered in the soles. The Talmud imagines this as another bodily modification designed to make them exceptionally fast, although the exact supposed physiological benefit is obscure.
(Note that from a modern medical standpoint, neither procedure makes sense as athletic enhancement.)
On this in general, see מיקרופדיה תלמודית, entry “בטול עבודה זרה“.