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

138 The Mountain as the Throne of Zeus

through this cleft, is nowhere level; on the contrary, it slopes like
the roof of a house and is indeed so steep that to climb up it is
difficult. There are, however, twenty or thirty foundations of
houses cut in the rock and rising one above the other like the
steps of an immense staircase. Also there are seven or eight
bell-shaped cisterns.

The ancient settlement on the summit of this remarkable crag
would seem to be that to which classical writers gave the name of
Tantalis or the city of Tantalus. They affirmed, indeed, that the

Fig. 103.

city had disappeared into a chasm produced by an earthquake;
but probably the immense ravine beneath suggested the idea of
the earthquake, and popular mythology completed the legend by
asserting that the old city had been hurled down into its depths.
See Pausanias, vii. 24. 13 ; Pliny, Nat. Hist. ii. 205, v. 117; Aristides,
Orat. xv. vol. 1. p. 371 sq., ed. Dindorf; cp. Strabo, i. p. 58.

On the very topmost pinnacle of the crag there is a square
cutting in the rock, resembling the seat of a large armchair, with
back and sides complete. It is about 5 feet wide, 3 feet from front
to back, and 3 feet high at the back. The back of the seat (as it
may be called) is simply the top of the precipice, which falls straight
down into the ravine, a sheer drop of 900 feet. Across the ravine
soars the arid rocky wall of Sipylus. On the other side the eye