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

Triptolemos

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peasant between Jassy and Bucharest1. Both these cups associate
Triptolemos with Isis and the Nile-god, the inference being that
on Egyptian soil the Greek agricultural hero was identified with
Osiris.

On the tazsa Farnese Triptolemos has not only a bag of seed
on his left arm, but a plough-pole and yoke in one hand, a plough-
share in the other. On the Petrossa phidle he holds a couple of
ploughs. O. Kern2 argues that all the evidence, whether literary3
or monumental4, connecting Triptolemos with the plough is com-
paratively late, in fact that he first became a ploughman in the
Alexandrine age owing to his identification with Osiris, who was
regarded by the Greeks and Romans as the inventor of the plough5.
This view has, however, been successfully refuted by O. Rubensohn(i,
who points out that in genuinely Egyptian sources Osiris is never
conceived as a ploughman, so that in Hellenistic times he must
have got the plough from Triptolemos, rather than Triptolemos
from him. Moreover, Rubensohn is able to adduce two vases of
the pre-Hellenistic period, on which Triptolemos is definitely
associated with a plough. One is a beW-krater of Attic make,
which may be dated about 450 B.C. It was found at Cumae and
is now in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris. On it we see
(pi. xx)7 Triptolemos, who has had his lesson in ploughing from
Demeter and is about to start on his tour of instruction. He is in
the act of mounting his winged seat, the high back of which
terminates in a griffin's head. He takes with him his sceptre and
a bunch of corn, but turns for a final word of advice or farewell to
Persephone, who carries two torches, and her mother, who still
holds the plough8. The other vase cited by Rubensohn is a skypJios

1 F. Matz loc. cit. pp. 135—137 pi. 52.

2 O. Kern loc. cit. pp. 102—105.

3 Varro fragg. 77, 78 Funaioli ap. interp. Serv. in Verg. georg. 1. 19, Ov. fast.
4. 559 f., Plin. nat. hist. 7. 199, Anth. Pal. 11. 59. 4 ff. (Makedonios), cp. Souid. s.v.
'Paptds.

4 Overbeck op. cit. p. 588 f. Gemmentaf. 4, 15—16, 18 (Furtwangler Geschnitt. Steine
Berlin p. 316 no. 8630 pi. 61, p. 248 no. 6747 pi. 48), id. id. p. 625 f. Atlas pi. 17,
24 (Mazzara sarcophagus).

5 Philostephanos irepl evprj/xdrtou frag. 28 {Frag. hist. Gr. iii. 32 f. Midler) ap. interp.
Serv. in Verg. georg. 1. 19, Serv. hi Verg. georg. 1. 147, Prob. in Verg. georg. 1. 19,
Myth. Vat. 3. 7. 1, cp. what is said of Horos by Nigidius ap. interp. Serv. in Verg.
georg. 1. 19.

6 O. Rubensohn 'Triptolemos als Pfluger' in the Ath. Mitth. 1899 xxiv. 59—71.

7 De Ridder Cat. Vases de la Bibl. Nat. ii. 315 f."no. 424, Lenormant—de Witte op.
cit. iii. 112 f., 183 f. pi. 64, Overbeck op. cit. pp. 518 ff., 538f. Atlas pi. 15, 13.

8 So Gerhard, Lenormant and de Witte, Rubensohn, de Ridder. Overbeck thought
that the holder of the torches was meant for Demeter, the holder of the plough for
Persephone. But cp. Souid. s.v. 'Papias-...17 tyrnx-qT-qp top aivbyovov 'Pdpov TpnrToXefjLov