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

258 The Solar Wheel in Greece

Mount Helikon. The mortals, vanquished by the immortals^ were
transformed into birds; and the zynxjftdiS one of these1.

But the earlier unsophisticated view saw in the wry-neck merely
a bird appropriate to the solar wheel, and useful therefore as a
fertility-charm. This explains its connexion with Dionysos, who
bore the titles Iyngtes and Iyngyi2. Finally, the fertility-charm, as
so often happens, dwindled into a love-charm, and the iynx or iynx-
wheel was associated with the deities of soft emotion—Aphrodite
and Eros, Himeros and Peitho3.

If the zynx-wheel was indeed a representation of the sun, we
might reasonably expect to find it in the entottrage of Apollon.
For this god, though not himself primarily or originally solar, can
be shown to have absorbed into his cult certain features of early
sun-magic4. In point of fact there is some ground for thinking
that the tynx was admitted into the Apolline cult at Delphoi.
That past master in magic Apollonios of Tyana, when wishing to
prove that the Delphic god did not disdain wealth and luxury,
remarked that at Pytho Apollon had required temple after temple,
each greater than its predecessor, and added that 'from one of them
he is said to have hung golden iynges which echoed the persuasive
notes of siren voices5.' This obscure passage has been brought
into connexion with another equally obscure. Pausanias, a propos
of the third or bronze temple at Delphoi, states: T do not believe
that the temple was a work of Hephaestus, nor the story about the
golden songstresses which the poet Pindar mentions in speaking of
this particular temple:—

And from above the gable
Sang' charmers all of gold.

Here, it seems to me, Pindar merely imitated the Sirens in Homer6.'

1 Nikandros ap. Ant. Lib.- 9.

2 Hesych. 'Ivyyirjs' 6 Aiovvaos and 'liyyv'i' 6 Aiovvaos. M. Schmidt suggests 'IvyKrris
' quasi eju/ator' in both cases.

The names k'lv<xi5os (schol. Theokr. 2. 17), kivcliSlov (schol. Plat. Gorg. 494 E, Phot.
lex. s.v."lvy!~, Hesych. s.vv. ivy!;, Kipaidtov, Souid. s.v. Tiry£), and <rei(roTrvyis (Souid. s.z>.
tvy!-, schol. Theokr. 2. 17, schol. Aristeid. iii. 307 Dindorf, Tzetz. in Lyk. Al. 310, et.
Gud. p. 285, 12, cp. p. 625, 53f., Zonar. lex. s.7J. tvy£) imply that the wry-neck was
confused with the wag-tail, but afford no proof of ' phallic symbolism' (D Arcy W.
Thompson op. cit. p. 71).

3 E. Saglio op. cit. iv. 864, R. Engelmann in Roscher Lex. Myth. ii. 772 f.

4 See the excellent discussion by Farnell Cults of Gk. States iv. 136m, especially
pp.- 143, 285.

5 Philostr. v. Apoll. 6. n p. 221, 32 ff. Kayser evbs 8£ avrQv /cat xpuc/as ivyyas avafai
Xeyerac HeLprjvwv riva eirexovcras (leg. iirrjxovcras) iretdb).

Prof. G. Murray thinks that iirexovaas might be rendered ' exerting a kind of Siren
persuasion,' but himself suggests ^7rixeotfcras, '•shedding a kind of Siren spell.'

6 Paus. 10. 5. 12 trans. J. G. Frazer. The fragment of Pindar is here cited in the