Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

Preface xv

more anxious to acknowledge this debt because on matters of the
deepest import we do not see eye to eye. Other helpful criticisms
have reached me from my friend Dr J. Rendel Harris, whose studies
of ' Dioscurism ' have obvious bearings on certain aspects of Zeus,
and from Mr F. M. Cornford, especially in connexion with Dionysiac
drama, a subject which he has made peculiarly his own.

Life in Cambridge has indeed afforded me, not merely ready
access to a great Library, but—what is better still—ready access to
many personal friends both able and willing to enlighten ignorance.
On questions of etymology I have time after time trespassed on
the scanty leisure of Dr P. Giles, Master of Emmanuel College,
or all too rarely had the benefit of a flying visit from the
Rev. Dr J. H. Moulton, Greenwood Professor of Hellenistic Greek
and Indo-European Philology in the Manchester University. Prof.
E. J. Rapson has answered various queries with regard to Sanskrit
myths and has furnished me with a detailed note on the Vedic
Dyaus. One who deals with the syncretistic worships of the nearer
East must perforce make excursions into the religions of Egypt,
Babylonia, Syria and Asia Minor. In things Egyptian I have
consulted Mr F. W. Green, Mr H. R. Hall, and Mrs C. H. W. Johns.
For Mesopotamian cult and custom I have gone to my friend and
former colleague Dr C. H. W. Johns, Master of St Catharine's
College. Semitic puzzles have been made plain to me, partly in
long-suffering talks and partly on learned post-cards (that boon of
modern University life), by the Rev. Prof. R. H. Kennett of Queens'
College, by Profs. A. Bevan and F. C. Burkitt of Trinity College,
by Mr N. McLean of Christ's College, and by Mr S. A. Cook of
Gonville and Caius College: to each and all of them I tender my
cordial thanks.

In a book of this character, with its constant appeal to the
monuments, textual illustration is not a luxury but a necessity.
And here again many friends have laid me under lasting obliga-
tions. Photographs of unpublished scenes or objects have been
sent to me by Mr K. Kourouniotes, Dr C. G. Seligmann,
Mr E. M. W. Tillyard, Mr P. N. Ure, Mr A. J. B. Wace, and by
my brother Dr A. R. Cook. Mr A. H, Smith, Keeper of Greek
and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum, has allowed me to
have photographs and drawings made of numerous art-treasures in
gold and silver, bronze, marble, and terra cotta : not a few of them
are figured here for the first time. I am specially indebted to
Mr H. B. Walters, Assistant-Keeper of the same collection, who