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

Zeus superseded by Saint Elias i6g

horsemen, and even as stars1. Other cases are recorded by Ioannes
Malalas2. After telling how the Argonauts founded at Kyzikos
a temple of Rhea Mother of the gods, which the emperor Zenon
transformed into a church of Mary Mother of God, he continues :
'The Argonauts...were next attacked by Amykos, and fearing his
might took refuge in a certain bay thickly covered with wildwood.
Here they saw in a vision a man of dreadful aspect with wings as
of an eagle on his shoulders, a spirit who came to them from the
sky and announced that they should conquer Amykos. So they
took heart and attacked him. Having conquered him they showed
their gratitude by founding a sanctuary on the spot where they had
beheld the vision and erecting there a statue of the spirit seen by
them. They called the place or the sanctuary itself SostJienes,
because they had fled thither and been saved ; and the place still
bears the name. When Byzantion had become the seat of empire,
Constantine the Great saw this sanctuary, in fact he left home in
order to restore it. Being now a Christian, he observed the statue
standing there on its pillar and remarked that from the Christian
point of view it looked like an angel in the garb of a monk. Awed
by the place and its fane, he went to sleep there after praying that
he might learn what angelic spirit the statue represented. He was
told in a vision the name of the spirit, offered prayer towards the
east, and called the place of prayer, or the locality, by the name of
the holy archangel Michael.' Again, one of the principal deities of
Byzantion was, as we might have expected, Poseidon3. The emperor
Justinian selected a spot on the Golden Horn and there built a
church to Saint Priskos and Saint Nikolaos, laying the foundations
of it actually in the water4. Similarly at the entrance to the
harbour of Mykonos—another centre of Poseidon-worship5—stands
a shrine of Saint Nikolaos, who calms the waves". It may be
supposed that in these and many other places the saint has
succeeded to the god, but the continuity of the mariner's cult
remains unbroken. ' There is no vessel, great or small, upon

1 L. Deubner De incubalione Lipsiae 1900 pp. 68—79, J. Rendel Harris The Cult of
the Heavenly Twins Cambridge 1906 pp. 53 f., 100.

2 Io. Malal. chron. 4 p. 78 f. Dindorf. E. Maass ' Boreas und Michael' in the
Jahresh. d. oest. arch. Inst. 1910 xiii. 117 ff. argues that Itwadevys was a cult-epithet
of Boreas, denoting the 'Fresh' north wind.

3 Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. pp. 138, 223, 1138 n. 2.

4 Procop. de aedijiciis 1. 6 (iii. 193 Dindorf). The house of Basilides, a quaestor of
Justinian, was also turned into a church of St Nikolaos (Codinus de aedijiciis Constantino-
polilanis 62 b), who was in fact titular saint of four churches at Byzantion (C. d. F.
Ducange Constantinopolis Christiana 4. 6. 67—70 p. 130 ed. Paris. 1680).

5 Dittenberger Syll. inscr. Gr.2 no. 615, 5 ff. = Michel Recueil d'Tnscr.gr. no. 714, 5 ff.

6 N. G. Polites Me\eT?7 e!7ri rod fiiov tuiu NewT^oaw 'EWrivcou Athens 1871 i. 58 n. 4.