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

132 The Mountain as the Throne of Zeus

of the Rhodian school, was successful in a poetical contest, held
at Alexandreia on behalf of Apollon and the Muses1. He com-
memorated his victory by dedicating in a temple at Rhodes a
votive relief made for him by Archelaos of Priene, a sculptor
belonging to the Rhodian school of art. The locality of the
contest thus accounts for the portraits of Ptolemy iv and Arsinoe,
for the divine honours paid to Homer2, and for the emphasis laid
on Apollon and the Muses, while the nationality of the poet and
the artistic traditions of the sculptor explain the adoption of Phi-
liskos' types. Zeus, himself of a Rhodian type, is Zeus Atabyrios
reclining on the highest peak of the island3. He was worshipped
also on the akropolis of Rhodes, as was Apollon, in whose sanctuary
Philiskos' group presumably stood.

Watzinger's reconstruction of the circumstances is attractive
and hangs well together. But it is beset by uncertainties. We
do not know that these types of Apollon and the Muses were
those devised by Philiskos4, or that the motif of a reclining Zeus
originated in Rhodes. The former is at most a probable guess ;
the latter is at most an improbable guess. Again, we do not know
that Archelaos the sculptor belonged to the Rhodian school of
sculpture, or that the supposed poet belonged to the Rhodian
school of poetry, or that the contest took place at Alexandreia,
or that it had anything to do with the cult of Apollon and the
Muses. In short, the whole explanation is hypothetical. And
other hypotheses are equally possible. For example, it might be
maintained that an epic poet of the Alexandrine school won a
prize-tripod5 at the Panionia, the great festival of Poseidon Heli-
konios held in the* territory of Priene6. He naturally got a local
sculptor to carve his votive tablet. The sculptor of course intro-
duced Homer as the prototype of all epic poets, paid the customary
compliment to the king and queen of his patron's town, and—
possibly prompted by the epithet Helikonios—represented Mount
Helikon with Zeus Helikonios'1 on its summit and the Muses
descending its side. The Muses suggested Apollon, and, at the
expense of topographical accuracy, Mount Helikon is merged in
another height of the same range and reveals Apollon, omphalos
and all, standing in his Delphic cave8.

1 Vitr. 7 praef. 4. 2 Supra p. 131 n. 2.

3 Append. B Rhodes. 4 Plin. nat. hist. 36. 34 f.

5 Bronze tripods were given as prizes at the games of Apollon Tpioirios (Hdt. 1. 144).

6 Nilsson Gr. Feste p. 74 ff.

7 Append. B Boiotia.

8 A. H. Smith in the Brit. Mus. Cat. Sculpture iii. 248 : ' It has been generally
supposed that the rocky terraces on which the Muses appear in this relief represent