DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42779#0098
THE AGE OF TRANSITION 63
incoming Dorians. I see no real evidence either way as to
its character and appearance. Blinkenberg tacitly assumes
that it was a mere tree-trunk, whereas it might equally well
have been a more elaborate statue of the Knossian type. He
makes the further unjustified assumption that it is not the
same as the primitive statue which stood in the shrine down
to the fourth century when a fire destroyed both it and the
temple. This makes it essential to assume that the pre-
Hellenic statue was either destroyed or superseded, and of
this there is no scrap of evidence.
The question arises therefore whether the statue that
lasted until the fire was the pre-Hellenic statue or not. We
know at any rate something of the primitive statue in question.
Firstly it must have been made before 690 b.c., for Lindian
colonists went at that time to Sicily1 and seem to have taken
with them some knowledge or actual version of the cult
statue of the metropolis.
Secondly, we are told by Kallimachos2 that it was a Aitov
§8os, a plain seated statue. This places it into a class of
seated xoana established with some care by Strabo.3 He
gives as instances the xoana at Phocaea, Massalia, Rome,
Chios, ‘and many other places’.
Thirdly, the same passage of Kallimachos attributes this
seated statue to the time of Danaos. As we have already seen
(see p. 52), there was at Argos a xoanon of ‘Apollo’ said to
have been there from the time of Danaos, as well as a relief
by Danaos himself which we saw had every reason to be
considered as a Minoan work. No doubt attributions of this
kind were often as wild as they were numerous. But the
curious fact emerges that the association of a statue with
Danaos does seem to give it some kind of pre-Hellenic
context. In any case there is no scrap of evidence to show
that the oldest Lindian image of all was replaced by an early
Hellenic version made not later that 690 B.c. There is,
1 La Chronique du Temple Lindien (Copenhagen, 1912), C.56.
2 Frag. 105 : Kai yap ’A0r)vr)s | sv AivSco Aavaos Aitov e0t|kev s5os. 3 xiii. 1.41.
incoming Dorians. I see no real evidence either way as to
its character and appearance. Blinkenberg tacitly assumes
that it was a mere tree-trunk, whereas it might equally well
have been a more elaborate statue of the Knossian type. He
makes the further unjustified assumption that it is not the
same as the primitive statue which stood in the shrine down
to the fourth century when a fire destroyed both it and the
temple. This makes it essential to assume that the pre-
Hellenic statue was either destroyed or superseded, and of
this there is no scrap of evidence.
The question arises therefore whether the statue that
lasted until the fire was the pre-Hellenic statue or not. We
know at any rate something of the primitive statue in question.
Firstly it must have been made before 690 b.c., for Lindian
colonists went at that time to Sicily1 and seem to have taken
with them some knowledge or actual version of the cult
statue of the metropolis.
Secondly, we are told by Kallimachos2 that it was a Aitov
§8os, a plain seated statue. This places it into a class of
seated xoana established with some care by Strabo.3 He
gives as instances the xoana at Phocaea, Massalia, Rome,
Chios, ‘and many other places’.
Thirdly, the same passage of Kallimachos attributes this
seated statue to the time of Danaos. As we have already seen
(see p. 52), there was at Argos a xoanon of ‘Apollo’ said to
have been there from the time of Danaos, as well as a relief
by Danaos himself which we saw had every reason to be
considered as a Minoan work. No doubt attributions of this
kind were often as wild as they were numerous. But the
curious fact emerges that the association of a statue with
Danaos does seem to give it some kind of pre-Hellenic
context. In any case there is no scrap of evidence to show
that the oldest Lindian image of all was replaced by an early
Hellenic version made not later that 690 B.c. There is,
1 La Chronique du Temple Lindien (Copenhagen, 1912), C.56.
2 Frag. 105 : Kai yap ’A0r)vr)s | sv AivSco Aavaos Aitov e0t|kev s5os. 3 xiii. 1.41.