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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#0479

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The Ram and the Sun in Phrygia 401

If the foregoing considerations are well founded, it follows that
there was no small resemblance between Zeus Amnion and Zeus
Sabdzios. In both cases a ram-god developed into a sun-god. In
both the deity became a snake. The Libyan Zeus had his sacred
oak1: the Phrygian Zeus as Bagaios was an oak-god2. Zeus
Amnion had a goddess to wife, possibly Mother Earth herself3,
and begat a youthful Amnion most probably identified with the
Libyan Dionysos4. Zeus Sabdzios consorted with Demeter and
Kore, perhaps before them with the earth-mother, and likewise
begat a Phrygian Dionysos.

Now there are strong reasons for believing that the Graeco-
Libyans were near akin to the Thraco-Phrygians, and that both
sets of tribes had relatives among
the early Cretans5. It is there-
fore of interest to find in Crete,
the half-way house between
them, sundry traces of the same
worship. We do not, it is true,
get here any ' Minoan ' evidence
of Zeus as a ram-god, unless
indeed we may see with Sir
Arthur Evans in a clay sealing
from the palace at Knossos (fig.
29s)6 the infant Zeus nursed by a horned sheep. But observe
that in Crete the ram gave place to other animals of a like
significance, especially to the agrimi or wild-goat and to the bull7.

scribit : eique deo in colle Zilmisso aedes dicata est specie rotunda, cuius medium inter-
patet tectum, rotunditas aedis monstrat huiusce sideris speciem : summoque tecto lumen
admittitur, ut appareat solem cuncta vertice summo lustrare lucis inmissu, et quia oriente
eo universa patefiunt. Perhaps we may compare the story of Perdikkas in Hdt. 8. 137 f.
W. Tomaschek in the Sitzungsber. d. kais. Akad. d. Wis^s. in Wien Phil.-hist. Classe
1868 lx. 358 derived Zilmissos from £t\a, 'wine' (Hesych. s.v. fiAcu ' b olvos irapa Qpa^L
with M. Schmidt's note ad loc).

1 Supra p. 364 ff.

2 Supra p. 400 n. r.

3 Supra p. 370.

4 Supra p. 371 ff.

5 The evidence is persuasively marshalled by Sir Arthur Evans in the Journ. Hell.
Stud. 1897 xvii. 372 ff- ('Crete the Meeting-point of Thraco-Phrygian and Libyan
Elements'). For a review of recent research in the same direction see K. Penka
Die vorhellenische Bevolkerung Griechenlands Hildburghausen 1911.

6 A. J. Evans in the Journ. Hell. Stud. 1901 xxi. 129 fig. 17 and in the Ann. Brit.
Sch. Ath. 1902—-1903 ix. 88 fig. 60. The sealing is enlarged (f).

7 Infra ch. i § 6 (g) xvi.

At Gortyna there appears to have been an annual festival (Ti(rvpoi), in which Zeus as
a Satyr (Tiavpos) consorted with the earth-goddess Europe (infra ch. i § 6 (g) xviii).
Now, according to Serv. in Verg. eel. 1 prooem., Laconum lingua Tityrus dicitur aries

c. 26

Fig. 298.
 
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