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

The Mountain as the Throne of Zeus 145

Between Megara and Eleusis lies the mountain-range of Kerata.
The highest of its four peaks (1527 ft)—as Prof. A. Milchhofer
first noted1—is thought by the peasants of Megara to have been
the spot whence Xerxes on his throne watched the battle of
Salamis. Since the site agrees with Akestodoros' description2,
W. Reichel twice visited it in order to verify Milchhofer's report.
At the south-east corner of the little plateau that crowns the
topmost peak he found an isolated rock partially hewn into
the shape of a seat with rounded back and projecting footstool
(fig. 108)3. The seat commands a wide view, but is so placed
that one sitting on it would face north and look directly away
from Salamis! Reichel concludes that it is a very ancient

Fig. 108.

mountain-throne, to which in popular belief the story of Xerxes
has become attached4.

In an angle of the Mouseion Hill at Athens there are no less
than seven such seats (figs. 109-no)5. Carefully cut in the rock
along one side of a platform or terrace, with a single step in
front of them, they give the impression of being a row of seats

1 See W. Reichel Uber vorhelhnische Gbtterculle Wien 1897 p. 21.

2 Akestodoros {Frag. hist. Gr. ii. 464 Miiller) ap. Plout. v. Them. 13 ev jxedopLu? tt)s
Meyapidos vwep tQv KaXovfxevcov Kepdrwi'.

3 W. Reichel ' Em angeblicher Thron des Xerxes' in the Festschrift fur Otto Benndorf
Wien 1898 pp. 63—65 with fig. (sketched by E. Gillieron from a photograph).

4 The actual throne was a golden chair (Akestodoros loc. cit.) with silver feet, preserved
on the Akropolis at Athens (Dem. in Timocr. 129 with schol.) in the Parthenon (Harpokr.
s.v. dpyvpowovs 8L(ppos).

5 E. Curtius and J. A. Kaupert Atlas von Athen Berlin 1878 p. 19f. description,
plan, and section ; pi. 6, 4 view.

C.

IO