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

lynx

261

prophylactic sort, in a word as tynges. However that may be, the
Delphic iynx is evidenced by other works of art. A series of
Etruscan funerary reliefs at Florence, Volterra, etc., represents the
death of Neoptolemos1. A cista in the Museum at Volterra
(fig. 188)2 will serve as an example. The hero, suddenly attacked
by Orestes, has fled for refuge to the altar in front of the Delphic
temple3, and, in order to put himself still more effectually under
the protection of the god, clasps with uplifted hand a six-spoked

Fig. 189.

wheel apparently conceived as hanging from the entablature. A
priestess on the left would wrest the sacred wheel from his grasp.
A priest on the right is horror-struck at the murder. And the
scene is completed by the presence of a winged Fury. The wheel,

1 A list of these reliefs is drawn up by Raoul-Rochette op. cit. p. 209, Overbeck Gall,
her. Bildw. p. 746 f. pi. 30, 15, P. Weizsacker in Roscher Lex. Myth. iii. 176, and above
all by Korte Rilievi delle Urne Etrusche 1890 ii. pi. 53 ff.

2 Korte op. cit. ii pi. 54, 4.

3 Cp. the scene of the tragedy as depicted on an Apulian a7nphora in the Jatta
collection {Ann. d. Inst. 1868 xl. 235 ff. pi. E = Baumeister Denkm. ii. 1009 fig. 1215 -
Roscher Lex Myth. iii. 175—176 fig. 5).