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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#0441

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Zeus of the Oasis a Graeco-Libyan god 365

A grove of ancient timber, and the oaks
That now touch stars came from that primal day.
Hence our forefathers feared ; for lo, the tree
Hath deity and is served with altar-flames V

It will be noticed that Silius is not simply paraphrasing Herodotos.
He makes the doves start from Thebes in Greece, not from Thebes
in Egypt, as is clear from his reference to the Carpathian sea, and
he adds the episode of the dove settling on the ram. The latter
feature, if not the former, reappears in the learned scholia on Servius2
and points to the existence of a non-Herodotean tradition3. Silius'
statement about the ancient grove and the oak-tree with altars
burning before it is of considerable moment, because—if true—it
goes far towards proving the essential similarity of the Dodonaean
and the Libyan cults. We cannot, I think, reject the statement on
the ground of botanical improbability. Authorities both ancient
and modern mention several species of oak as growing in north
Africa4; and Pliny even states that in the neighbourhood of
Thebes at a distance of 300 stades from the Nile was a wooded
tract with springs of its own (an oasis ?) producing oaks, olives,
etc.5 Again, Amnion appears to have had a sacred grove on the
shores of the Syrtis6; and various writers attest the existence in

1 Sil. It. 3. 675—691. The concluding lines (688 ff.) run : mox subitum nemus atque
annoso robore lucus | exiluit, qualesque premunt nunc sidera quercus | a prima venere
die : prisco hide pavore | arbor numen habet coliturque tepentibus aris. Cp. id. 10 f.
corniger Hammon | fatidico pandit venientia saecula luco, 666 f. lucos nemorosaque
regna | cornigeri Iovis.

2 Interp. Serv. in Verg. Aen. 3. 466 Iuppiter quondam Hebae {leg. Thebae) filiae
tribuit duas columbas humanam vocem edentes, quarum altera provolavit in Dodonae
glandiferam silvam Epiri, ibique consedit in arbore altissima, praecepitque ei qui turn
earn succidebat, ut ab sacrata quercu ferrum sacrilegum submoveret : ibi oraculum Iovis
constitutum est, in quo sunt vasa aenea, quae uno tactu universa solebant sonare. altera
autem columba pervenit in Libyam, et ibi consedit super caput arietis, praecepitque ut

• Iovis Ammonis oraculum constitueretur.

3 L. Beger Thesauriis Brandenburgicus selectus Coloniae Marchicae 1696 iii. 22 r
(Montfaucon Antiquity Explained trans. D. Humphreys London 1721 i. 28 f. pi. 10
no. 4, Reinach Re~p. Stat. ii. 771, 8) published a bronze at Berlin, which according to him
represents the dove on the head of the Ammonian ram. More probably it is a variation
of the type of an eagle on a ram's head (Babelon—Blanchet Cat. Bronzes de la Bibl. Nat.
p. 494 no. 1252 fig., Reinach op. cit. ii. 771, 7).

4 Plin. nat. hist. 16. 32 (parva aquifolia ilex = quercus coccifera Linn.) ; La Grande
Encyclopddie x. 1065 b, 1066 a, b {qu. ballota Desf., qu. suber Linn., qu. Mirbeckii
Durieu).

5 Plin. nat. hist. 13. 63 circa Thebas haec, ubi et quercus et persea et oliva, ccc a
Nilo stadiis, silvestri tractu et suis fontibus riguo.

6 Skyl./<?r. 109 [Geogr. Gr. min. i. 85 Mliller) b> 5£ rep kolXotcltoj ttjs ~2vpTi5os {ev rip
/j-vxv) QiXaivov fico/Aoi, eirivLov d/xfxovvei- aXovs {leg. eiriveiov, "A/^uw^os &\<ros) tt/s ^vprcdos.
The great Avimoneion is loosely connected with the Syrtis by Lucan. 4. 673, 10. 38,
Prudent, apoth. 443.
 
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