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

144 The Mountain as the Throne of Zeus

lastly Melichios in the fourth1 and Zeus Melichios in the fourth
or third century2. Beside most of these inscriptions, both within
and without the old building, certain small sinkings, round,
square, or irregularly shaped, and hardly more than a foot in
length and breadth, are made in the rock. These look as though
they had been intended to receive altars or dedications of some
sort, or perhaps, as F. Hiller von Gaertringen suggests, to serve
instead of altars themselves3. P. Wolters, however, describes
them as ' seat-shaped cuttings' {sitzartigen EinarbeitungenY, and
W. Reichel goes so far as to call them ' rock-thrones' (Felslhrone)5.
The principal deities worshipped at an early date in this ' agora
of the gods6' were clearly Zeus and Koures. Not improbably—
as E. Maass has argued7—Koitres was a cult-epithet of Zeus him-
self8. If so, the Curetic cult of Thera was analogous to the Curetic
cult of Crete9. In this connexion a dedication of hair to the
Dymanian nymphs is noteworthy10. Moreover, it can hardly be
accidental that the same site was later occupied by the Gymnasium
of the epheboi11. It is likely too that the cult stood in some relation
to the adjoining grotto, where warm currents of moist air issue from
two holes in the rock-wall and an intermittent roar—perhaps that
of the sea far below—can be faintly heard. The explorers' work-
men would not risk sleeping in the cave. If it was to the Kouretes
of Thera what the Dictaean and Idaean caves were to the Kouretes
of Crete12, we may legitimately suspect that it once contained a
throne of Zeus.

1 Inscr. Gr. ins. iii no. 406 evara | M??Atxi[os] = Collitz-Bechtel ib. no. 4752. On
evvTov see L. Ziehen in the Ath. Mitth. 1899 xxiv. 267 ff.

2 Inscr. Gr. ins. iii Suppl. no. 1316 Zeus M?7\t]xtos tQv \ irepl Ho\v j %evo \v.

3 F. Hiller von Gaertringen on Inscr. Gr. ins. iii nos. 350—363.

4 P. Wolters in the Ath. Mitth. 1896 xxi. 255.

5 W. Reichel Uber vorhellenische Gotterculte Wien 1897 p. 31.

6 On the deities named in the rock-inscriptions of Thera see F. Hiller von Gaertringen
Die archaische Ktritur der Insel Thera Berlin 1897 p. r7 ff. and Die Inset Thera i. 149 ff.,
iii. 63 f.

7 E. Maass in Hermes 1890 xxv. 40611., taking Kovprjs to be for Kovporpb(pos (which
is improbable) and comparing Apollon Kovpeas of Teos (Dittenberger Syll. inscr. Gr.2
no. 445 'Att6X\(i)i>os \ Kovpeov \ TLo\\l8u>v j /ecu [<&]a.Li>ia5u>i>, cp. Michel Recneil d''Inscr. gr.
no. 807 = Butt. Corr. Helt. 1880 iv. 168).

8 Cp. supra pp. 15, 104 ff.

9 H. Usener in F. Hiller von Gaertringen Die Inset Thera i. 149 n. 34 compared the
Kovprjs of Thera with the irpctiTOKOTjprjs of Ephesos and most ingeniously suggested that the
enigmatic personage Aetirepos may have been the ' second' in command of a band of
human Kovprjres. I incline, however, to think that Aetirepos means ' re-born; (8evrep6-
TroTjxos) and is an epithet of Kovprjs, the youthful Zeus.

10 Inscr. Gr. ins. iii no. 377 [A](v)(fA)dv(w)v \ [NtfXk6cu | /c6(ytt)(a)i.../3' = Collitz-Bechtel
ib. no. 4741. See F. Hiller von Gaertringen Die Insel Thera i. 284.

11 Id. ib. i. 33 f., 289 ff., iii. 115 ff. 12 Append. B Crete.