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

2i8 The Solar Wheel in Greece

kdlpis at Munich, from the Canino collection, shows him with
sceptre, corn-ears, and fikidle, seated on a wheeled and winged
throne between Demeter and Persephone: the former holds an
oinockde, the latter a necklace (fig. 161)1. A krater at Palermo
found in a tomb at Girgenti in 1841, has much the same scene
amplified by the addition of Keleos on the right and Hippothon on
the left. Keleos is present as the father of Triptolemos and king
of Eleusis; Hippothon, as the representative of the tribe Hippo-
thontis, to which the deme Eleusis belonged. The wheeled throne
is here provided with snakes as well as wings. The column behind
Keleos (pi. xviii)2, which occurs sometimes duplicated, on other
vase-paintings of the scene3, may stand for his palace or for the
temple of Demeter, but more probably represents—as Lenormant
suggested4—the Telesterion at Eleusis with its forest of columns.
Indeed, it seems reasonable to suppose that this very popular type,
the departure of Triptolemos5, is based on an actual rite, part of the
sacred drama performed at Eleusis, in which the protege of the
goddess, mounting his winged seat was swung aloft by means of a
geranos or scenic crane6. Claudian in his description of the Eleusi-
nian rites plainly alludes to such a scene:

Triptolemos' snakes are hissing. Lo, they raise
Their scaly necks beneath the bended yokes,
And smoothly gliding rear their rosy crests
To the sound of hymns7.

Thus uplifted into the air, Triptolemos both in ritual and in
myth commenced his triumphant progress, scattering grain broad-
cast wherever he went. A red-figured kylix from the Pourtales
collection, now at Berlin, shows him in mid course shedding a whole
shower of seeds, while Nike hovering in front greets his advent
(fig. 162)8.

1 Jahn Vasensamml. Munchen^. 105 f. no. 340 TP I PTOUFM05, AEMETEP,
PEPO0ATA {sic), Inghirami Vas. fiit. i pi. 35, Lenormant—cle Witte op. cit. iii pi.
50, Overbeck op. cit. Atlas pi. 15, 9, Furtwangler—Reichhold Gr. Vasenmalerei ii.
233 f. pi. 106, 1.

2 R. Politi ' Cinque vasi di premio ' in the Sicilian journal La Concordia 1841 ii. 109 f.

pis. 7f. HIPnOOON A5Ao3>13© 50M3>I0THI5]T AEMETER KEUEO,

Lenormant—de Witte op. cit. iii pi. 62, Overbeck op. cit. Atlas pi. 15, 30.

3 See Overbeck ib. pi. T5, 16—18, 24, pi. 16, r a.

4 Lenormant—de Witte op. cit. iii. 176.

5 H. B. Walters History of Ancient Pottery London 1905 ii. 27 f.

6 This was the view of C. A. Bottiger and F. G. Welcker : see Overbeck op. cit.
p. 534. Cp. also E. Bethe Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Theaters im Alterthum
Leipzig 1896 p. 142 ff. ' Flugmaschine.'

7 Claud, de rapt. Pros. 1. [2ff.

8 Furtwangler Vasensamml. Berlin ii. 702 f. no. 2521, Arch. Zeit. 1865 xxiii pi. 204,