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

150 The Mountain as the Birth-place of Zeus

which he is said to have built a city1) and, later2, in a cave high up
on the side of Mount Ide3. Both districts had strange stories to tell
of the way in which the divine child had been nurtured by doves

or bees, a goat or a pig, while Kouretes and Korybantes clashed
their weapons to drown his infant cries (figs. 116, 117)4. But Lydia

1 Diod. 5. 70 avSpwdevra 8' aurou (paai irpdorov ttoKlv ktIgoli xepl rr\v Alktciv, oirov koX tt)v
yevecnv olvtov yevecrdai fivdoXoyovcnv • rjs eKXeupdeicrrjs iu tois varepov x/xWis diafxeveiv 'in
koX vvv epjxara tQ>v defieXLwv. Sir Arthur Evans identifies this city with the extensive
prehistoric ruins at Gonitis (see his 'Goulas: The City of Zeus' in the Ann. Brit. Sch.
Ath. 1895—1896 ii. 169 ff.; cp., however, the more thorough investigations of J. Demargne
in the Bnll. Corr. Hell. 1900 xxiv. 222, 1901 xxv. 282 ff., 1903 xxvii. 206 ff., and of
A. J. Reinach in the Jahrb. d. kais. dentsch. arch. Inst. 1910 xxv Arch. Anz. p. 404 f.).

2 There is evidence that the cult of the Dictaean cave was in time superseded by that
of the Idaean cave. ' With very rare and sporadic exceptions, the Dictaean antiquities do
not come down lower than the Geometric period, i.e., probably the opening of the eighth
century B.C.' (D. G. Hogarth in the Ann. Brit. Sch. Ath. 1899—1900 vi. 115). Further,
a treaty between Lyttos and Olous {Corp. inscr. Att. ii. 1 no. 549 5 = Collitz-Bechtel
Gr. Dial.-Inschr. iii. 2. 380 f. no. 5147 5) makes the Lyttians swear by T^a Bidarav,
' Zeus of Ide,' while another inscription (id. iii. 2. 301 ff. no. 5024, 22 f.) mentions a temple
of Zeus r<3 Bidardu on the frontier of Priansos: Lyttos and Priansos are so near to
Mt Dikte that, had the Dictaean cult still been flourishing, Zeus would presumably have
been invoked as Aiktcuos, not Btddras (R, C. Bosanquet in the Ann. Brit. Sch. Ath.
1908—1909 xv. 349).

3 Append. B Crete.

4 Von Rohden-Winnefeld Ant. Terrakotten iv. 1.8 f., following E. Braun (Mon.
d. Inst, iii pi. 17, Ann. d. Inst. 1840 xii. 141 ff. pi. K), distinguish two types of terra-cotta
reliefs: (1) the Caeretan type shows the infant Zeus in the arms of a female seated on a
throne with two Kouretes to right and left; the best example is in the Ny Carlsberg
collection (Ant. Terrakotten pi. 10). (2) The Roman type, referable to the Augustan
age, shows the infant Zeus seated on a rock and introduces a third Koures ; the best

Z€ y

Fig. 116.

Fig. 117.