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

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14695#0428

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352 The Ram and the Sun in Egypt

Kyrene also1. At Sparta there was another sanctuary of Amnion,
concerning which Pausanias remarks :

' From the earliest times the oracle in Libye is known to have been consulted
by the Lacedaemonians more frequently than by the rest of the Hellenes. It
is said that when Lysandros was besieging Aphytis in Pallene, Ammon appeared
to him by night and foretold that it would be better for him and for Lakedaimon
to desist from the war with the Aphytaeans. So Lysandros raised the siege
and induced the Lacedaemonians to revere the god more than ever ; and the
Aphytaeans are not a whit behind the Ammonian Libyans in their respect for
Ammon2.'

Certainly Aphytis possessed an oracle of Ammon?j, whose head
appears as the principal type on its coinage from 424 B.C. onwards4.
Lysandros himself had a brother named Libys after a Libyan king,
who was a friend of the family5. And, when Lysandros found it
expedient to be absent awhile from Sparta, he obtained permission
to go on a pilgrimage to Libye6. He even attempted to bribe the
oracle of Ammon in the Oasis, hoping to obtain its support for
certain revolutionary measures that he was contemplating ; but the
god sent emissaries to accuse him before the Spartans. On his
acquittal the Libyans withdrew, protesting that, when, in accord-
ance with an ancient oracle, Lacedaemonians came to settle in
Libye, Libyan justice would be found superior to that of Sparta7.
The Spartans, apparently, were in the habit of consulting various
oracles, that of Ammon among them, on matters of importance8;
and it was said that the oracle of Ammon preferred the laconic
brevity of the Spartans to the elaborate ritual of the other Greeks9.
Another town that had established relations with the Oasis as
early as the first half of the fifth century was Thebes. Pausanias
speaks of a temple of Ammon as built there, and adds:

' The image was dedicated by Pindar : it is a work of Kalamis. Pindar also
sent a hymn in honour of Amnion to the Ammonians in Libye. This hymn
was still to be seen in my time on a triangular slab beside the altar which
Ptolemaios, son of Lagos, dedicated to Ammon™ J

the festival of the Karneia (Theokr. 5. 83). Altogether, the ram-connexion is well-
established.

See further S. Eitrem Beitrdge zur griechischen Religionsgeschichte i. Der vor-dorische
Widdergott Christiania 1910 pp. 1—24.

1 Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 1558 n. 5, citing J. Zingerle in the Ath. Mitth. 1896
xxi. 79.

2 Paus. 3. 18. 3, cp. Plout. v. Lys. 20.

3 Steph. Byz. s.v. 'Ac/jvtt] r)"A(pvTLs.

4 Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Macedonia etc. p. 61, Head Hist. ?tum.2 p. 209 f.

5 Diod. 14. 13. e Plout. v. Lys. 20.

7 Plout. v. Lys. 25 (after Ephoros), Diod. 14. 13, cp. Cic. de div. 1. 96.

8 Cic. de div. 1. 95. 9 Plat. Alcib. ii. 149 B.
10 Paus. 9. 16. 1.
 
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