DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14695#0264
The Sun as a Wheel 197
And again he announced to a second worshipper, Stratonikos by
name:
Thou still hast long to live; but reverence
The eye of life-giving Zeus with offerings meet1.
An Orphic hymn, after identifying Zeus with various parts of the
cosmic whole—the sun and moon included, goes on to say more
expressly:
As eyes he has the sun and the shining moon2.
Another Orphic hymn likewise describes the sun as at once the eye
of the world and Zeus:
Immortal Zeus,
Clear-skied, all-radiant, circling eye of the world3.
In a somewhat similar vein Nonnos of Panopolis in Egypt, a poet
who wrote about the year 400 A.D., makes Dionysos address to the
sun-god of Tyre a remarkable hymn, in which that divinity is
saluted not only as 'Sun' and 'all-bright eye of Aitherl but also by
a fusion of religious ideas as 'the Assyrian Zeus' and 'the cloudless
Zeus of Egypt4.'
It may be added that the Greeks of the Peloponnese still speak
of the sun as 'God's eye5,' and that the Albanians swear by the eye
of the sun or of the star6.
(d) The Sun as a Wheel.
i. The Solar Wheel in Greece.
Another conception of the sun that has left its mark upon
Greek mythology and religion is that of a revolving wheel7.
1 Cougny ib. 6. 154. 1 f. dWd (re(3d£ou \ faodorov Aids 6/x/j.a dvyiroXlcus ayavfjaiv.
2 Orph. frag. 123, 6 Abel'Zeus tjXlos t]5e ffeX^vrj, ib. 18 ofifxara 5' rjeXios /ecu 7ra/x0a-
vboxra creXrjvy).
3 Orph. h. LLel. 8. 13 f. dddvare Zeu, | evdie, iracrMpaes, KQGfxov to irepLdpofiov ofifia.
Cp. supra p. 187 n. 10.
4 Noun. Dion. 40. 370'HeXie... 379 iraixcpah aidepos oix\xa... 393 'Aaatipios Zevs... 399
etVe Sdpa7rts Zcpvs, MyvirTLos dvicpekos Zetfs. Count de Marcellus ad loc. cp. Mart. Cap.
185 ff., where Philologia addresses the sun-god in an equally syncretistic strain.
5 N. G. Polites op. cit. p. 33.
6 J. G. von Hahn Albanesische Studien Jena 1854 ii. 106. ^
7 For this conception among other peoples see J. Grimm Teutonic Mythology trans.
J. S. Stallybrass ii. 70 r f., iv. 1499 f., H. Gaidoz in the Rev. Arch. 1884 ii. 7ff., 136 ff.,
1885!. 179 ff., 364 ff., ii. 16 ff., 167 ff., A. Bertrand La religion des Gaulois Paris 1897
p. 185 ff., J. Rhys Hibbert Lecttires i886'A London 1898 p. 450 ff, Folk-Lore 1906 xvii. 58,
W. Simpson The Buddhist Praying-zuheel London 1896, G. Maspero The Dawn of
Civilization'1 London 1901 p. 656 k
And again he announced to a second worshipper, Stratonikos by
name:
Thou still hast long to live; but reverence
The eye of life-giving Zeus with offerings meet1.
An Orphic hymn, after identifying Zeus with various parts of the
cosmic whole—the sun and moon included, goes on to say more
expressly:
As eyes he has the sun and the shining moon2.
Another Orphic hymn likewise describes the sun as at once the eye
of the world and Zeus:
Immortal Zeus,
Clear-skied, all-radiant, circling eye of the world3.
In a somewhat similar vein Nonnos of Panopolis in Egypt, a poet
who wrote about the year 400 A.D., makes Dionysos address to the
sun-god of Tyre a remarkable hymn, in which that divinity is
saluted not only as 'Sun' and 'all-bright eye of Aitherl but also by
a fusion of religious ideas as 'the Assyrian Zeus' and 'the cloudless
Zeus of Egypt4.'
It may be added that the Greeks of the Peloponnese still speak
of the sun as 'God's eye5,' and that the Albanians swear by the eye
of the sun or of the star6.
(d) The Sun as a Wheel.
i. The Solar Wheel in Greece.
Another conception of the sun that has left its mark upon
Greek mythology and religion is that of a revolving wheel7.
1 Cougny ib. 6. 154. 1 f. dWd (re(3d£ou \ faodorov Aids 6/x/j.a dvyiroXlcus ayavfjaiv.
2 Orph. frag. 123, 6 Abel'Zeus tjXlos t]5e ffeX^vrj, ib. 18 ofifxara 5' rjeXios /ecu 7ra/x0a-
vboxra creXrjvy).
3 Orph. h. LLel. 8. 13 f. dddvare Zeu, | evdie, iracrMpaes, KQGfxov to irepLdpofiov ofifia.
Cp. supra p. 187 n. 10.
4 Noun. Dion. 40. 370'HeXie... 379 iraixcpah aidepos oix\xa... 393 'Aaatipios Zevs... 399
etVe Sdpa7rts Zcpvs, MyvirTLos dvicpekos Zetfs. Count de Marcellus ad loc. cp. Mart. Cap.
185 ff., where Philologia addresses the sun-god in an equally syncretistic strain.
5 N. G. Polites op. cit. p. 33.
6 J. G. von Hahn Albanesische Studien Jena 1854 ii. 106. ^
7 For this conception among other peoples see J. Grimm Teutonic Mythology trans.
J. S. Stallybrass ii. 70 r f., iv. 1499 f., H. Gaidoz in the Rev. Arch. 1884 ii. 7ff., 136 ff.,
1885!. 179 ff., 364 ff., ii. 16 ff., 167 ff., A. Bertrand La religion des Gaulois Paris 1897
p. 185 ff., J. Rhys Hibbert Lecttires i886'A London 1898 p. 450 ff, Folk-Lore 1906 xvii. 58,
W. Simpson The Buddhist Praying-zuheel London 1896, G. Maspero The Dawn of
Civilization'1 London 1901 p. 656 k