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

282 The Solar Wheel in Greece

metathesis of names intelligible on the assumption that the Diana
in question was Diana Nemorensis. That assumption is borne
out by the wording of the poem :

Is it not infamous that a prudent man

Should be seduced to worship a cut branch1

Or call a log2 Diana? Ye believe

One drunk at dawn, full-fed, and doomed to die3,

Who speaks just what he thinks with feigned art

And, whilst he plays the god4 full solemnly,

Feeds his own entrails5. Thus abominable,

He fouls his fellow-citizens wholesale,

Gathers a brotherhood akin to himself

And with them feigns a tale to adorn the god.

He knows not how his own fate to foretell6,

Yet dares to do the like for other folk,—

Shoulders the god at times, at times just drops him.

He turns himself about revolving still

With a two-pronged stick, till you might think he were

Inspired by the godhead of the same7.

ecclesiasticoi'um Latinorum xv) Vindobonae 1887 p. 24 f. The chief variants are men-
tioned in the following notes.

1 The manuscript reading in the first line is uirum C. A. edd. antt., itiriiim B. A
marg., and in the second line talem C. B. A. edd. antt. Two brilliant emendations have
been proposed. E. Ludwig in the Teubner text (1878) adopts his own cj. Non igno-
minium est Virbium seduci prudentem | et colere talem aut Dianam dicere lignum? and
comments (p. xxxiv) : hoc 1. nomen proprium desiderari ex uerbis hisce ' colere talem aut
Dianam dicere lignum' adparet; neque uero deae nemoris numen quodlibet coniungi
potest, sed solus deus nemoris ac uenationis Dianae similis uel eiusdem deae sacerdos,
quem esse Virbium, antiquissimum Regem Nemorensem ac sacerdotem Dianae in nemore
Ariciensi cultae, codicum scriptura probatur. B. Dombart keeps uirum, which has the
support of C (cod. Cheltenhamensis, s. xi) our best MS., and very ingeniously cj. taleam,
'a cut bough' or 'branch.' In favour of retaining talem is Commod. instr. 1. 14. 6 non
te pudet, stulte, tales adorare tabellas? 1. 17. 12 sed stipem ut tollant ingenia talia
quaerunt, 1. 18. 18 gestabant enim, et aruit tale sigillum, 1. 17. iff. christianvm
talem esse. The word is, in fact, something of a mannerism in this poet.

2 B. Dombart cp. Arnob. adv. nat.6. n coluisse...lignum tCariosf (so MSS., but the
text has been corrected to Icarios by the aid of Clem. Al. protr. 4. 46. 3 p. 35, 17 f.
Stahlin and Strab. 639) pro Diana indolatum.

3 Dombart ad loc. : 'periturus ideo dicitur sacerdos Dianae Aricinae, quia cogebatur
cum eo certamen singulare inire, qui locum eius petebat.'

4 F. Oehler (ed. 1847), content to follow the MSS. (die C. dum B.A. edd. antt.), prints:
Seuere dum agit. E. Ludwig cj. Seuere deum agit. B. Dombart, after Hanssen's cj.
d(iuin)um, reads : Seuere (divinum) dum agit. We are not elsewhere definitely told that
the priest of Diana acted the part of a god ; but cp. 14 ipsos sacerdotes colitis.

5 The MSS. have poscit (so C. A. : poscit B.) which gives a possible sense—'begs
entrails for himself.' But all the editors adopt the reading pascit: this probably means
'feeds his own entrails, gorges himself (cp. 3 crudo).

6 Since every moment he is |liable to be attacked by his would-be successor (cp. 3
perituro).

7 The poet appears to mean that the priest of Diana held a forked stick, like a
dowser's divining-rod, and spun himself round as though inspired by the movement of