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

Wolf-god or Light-god ?

building1.' Trespassers on the precinct of Zeus Lykaios not only-
lost their shadows, but were actually put to death2. Plutarch
states that such persons were called 'deer' (elaphoif, that if they
had entered the precinct voluntarily they were stoned to death,
and that if they had entered it through ignorance they were sent
away to Eleutherai4. But, if the ultimate explanation of the
shadowless precinct on Mount Lykaion lies in the connexion
once thought to exist between shadow and soul, it by no means
follows that this was the explanation given by Greeks of the
classical period. They may well have forgotten the real meaning
of a belief to which they still clung and have attributed it to
some irrelevant cause. That is what in point of fact they did.
Polybios the historian, who as a native of Megalopolis would take
a personal interest in matters Arcadian, writes as follows anent
certain Carian superstitions : ' It appears to me that such tales
are only fit to amuse children, when they transgress not merely
the limits of probability but those of possibility as well. For
instance, to assert that some bodies when placed in light cast
no shadow argues a state of extreme obtuseness. Yet Theo-
pompos has done this; for he declares that those who enter
the holy precinct of Zeus in Arkadia cast no shadow, which is
on a par with the statements that I mentioned just now5.' Theo-
pompos, then, the historian of Chios, explained the miracle of
Mount Lykaion by saying that beasts and men on the summit
cast no shadow because they were there ' placed in light6.' This
can only mean that a divine light encircled the mountain-top and
made all shadows impossible. Mount Lykaion, in fact, resembled

1 J. G. Frazer on Paus. 8. 38. 6 (iv. 384), citing B. Schmidt Das Volksleben der
Neugriechen Leipzig 1871 i. 196 f. See also injra ch. i § 6 (g) vi. The way for this
explanation was prepared by Plout. loc. cit., F. G. Welcker Kleine Schriften Bonn
1850 iii. t6i, E. L. Rochholz Deutscher Glaube tind Branch im Spiegel der heidnischen
Vorzeit Berlin 1867 i. 119, H. D. Midler Mythologie der griechischen Stdmme Gottingen
1869 ii. 96 f. On the identification of soul with shadow see further E. B. Tylor Primitive
Culturez London 1891 i. 430 f., cp. 85 f., W. Wundt Volkerpsychologie Leipzig 1906 ii. 2.
40 ff., 84 ff.

2 Pseudo-Eratosth. catast. 1, schol. Arat. phaen. 91, schol. Caes. Germ. Aratea
p. 381, 16 ff. Eyssenhardt, Hyg. poet. astr. 2. 1, 2. 4.

3 They may have been dressed as deer before being chased or killed. To the examples
of human 'e\a<poi that I collected in the Joum. Hell. Stud. 1894 xiv. 133 ff- should be
added the stag-mummers of Syracuse (schol. Theokr. tv. ttjs evpecreais tGiv ^ovko\lkQ>v p. 5,
7 ff. Ahrens) and the man disguised as a stag, slain and eaten, in an epic fragment dealing
with Dionysos (F. G. Kenyon in H. van Herwerden's Album Gratulatorium Trajecti ad
Rhenum 1902 p. 137 ff. and A. Ludwich in the Berl. philol. Woch. Jan. 3, 1903 p. 27 ff.).

4 Plout. quaestt. Gr. 39.

5 Polyb. 16. 12. 6ff.

6 Id. 16. 12. 7 h (piori TLdefxeva.