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

336

The Solar Chariot

Later this type of Helios and his chariot came to be enclosed
in the solar disk. A fine example is furnished by a silver-gilt
plaque found in a tomb at Elis and acquired in 1906 by the British
Museum (pi. xxiv, t)\ Its embossed design shows Helios with
radiate head driving his horses up from the sea. His cloak is
fastened with a big circular stud. A curved exergual line repre-
sents the horizon, and two plunging dolphins the sea. Nothing of
_the chariot is visible. But the whole disk with its shining concave
surface and its divergent lines suggests the on-coming sun in a
marvellously successful manner. A crescent of bronze (pi. xxiv, 2)2
likewise embossed with acanthus-leaves, lotus-work, and two large
lilies, equally well suggests the quiet moon. This latter plaque was
found in another tomb at Elis along with a whole series of phdlara
or ' horse-trappings'; and such no doubt was the character of our
solar disk also. Mr F. H. Marshall dates them all c. 300 B.C.
These phdlara, as L. Stephani pointed out, had an apotropaeic value3.
Indeed, they have it still. My brother-in-law Mr C. H. C. Visick,
who owns a good collection of modern horse-amulets ('horses'
money'), informs me that most of them are demonstrably deri-
vatives of the sun or moon. •

>-^ On a red-figured krater from Apulia now at Vienna (fig. 26g)4

the complete chariot appears surrounded by a rayed disk. The
oval shape of this disk was determined by the turn of the horses to
right and left, and can hardly have been meant to reproduce the
optical illusion of the sun's orb flattened on the horizon. An
interesting reminiscence of the solar wheel is the swastika on the

rom. Sculpt, pi. 287 a); many black-figured vases (Gerhard Auserl. Vasenb. i pis. i, 2, 62,
2, 106, 6, P. Gardner Cat. Vases Oxford p. 6, no. 190 pi. 1, E. A. Gardner Cat. Vases
Cambridge p. 28 no. 53 pi. 15, Masner Samml. ant. Vasen ti. Terracotten Wien p. 23 f.
no. 220 fig. 14, p. 25 no. 223, p. 291". no. 235, p. 30 f. no. 237 pi. 4, Nicole Cat. Vases
d'Atkenes Suppl. p. 167 f. no. 889 pi. 8, alib.); bronze plates from Athens (A. G. Bather
in the Journ. Hell. Stud. 1892—3 xiii. 257f. pi. 8), Eleutherai {id. ib. p. 255 pi. 9, 2),
Dodona (C. Carapanos Dodone et ses mines Paris 1878 p. 36 pi. 19, 1, 2, 4), Olympia
(A. Furtwangler in Olympia iv. 104 f. no. 706 pi. 39). But the Rhodian bronzes too
were presumably meant to represent a pair of animals apiece.

1 Brit. Mus. Cat. Jewellery p. 239 no. 2108 pi. 40, F. H. Marshall in the Journ.
Hell. Stud. 1909 xxix, 160 fig. 13. Diameter 6*2 cm. Mr Marshall remarks that an
exactly similar disk was published by L. Pollak Klassisch-antike Goldschfniedearbeiten in
Besitze Sr. Excellenz A.J. von Nelidow Leipzig 1903 no. 533 pi. 20.

2 F. H. Marshall in the Journ. Hell. Stud. [909 xxix. 159 fig. 12. Width 11-5 cm.

3 L. Stephani in the Compte-rendu St. Pe't. 1865 p. 1646°. Atlas pi. 5, 2—6, 8. Cp.
O. Tahn in the Ber. sacks. Gesellsch. d. Wiss. Phil.-hist. Classe 1855 p. 42 n. 48.

(^T:_PanojFka JJ3glios__Alabyrios' in the Arch. Zeit. 1848 ii. 3058". pi. 20, 1, 2,
F. G. Welcker Alt. Denktn. iii. 66 ('Helios steigt wahrend eines Gewitters, das durch den
Blitz angedeutet ist, empor'), Reinach Re'p. Vases i. 368, 3, A. Bertrand La religion des
Gaulois Paris 1897 p. 171 f. fig. 28.