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

4_o8 The Golden or Purple Lamb of Atreus

represented on a vase from Ruvo (fig. 303)\ Pelops in Phrygian
attire clasps the hand of Hippodameia over a flaming altar. By
the bride stands her father Oinomaos in full armour. Behind him
a wreathed attendant, perhaps Myrtilos, brings the ram for the
sacrifice: the wheel at his feet is a short-hand indication of the
approaching chariot-race. The Fury on the right and Aphrodite
with Eros on the left suggest the two alternatives of death or
victory. A fine polychrome vase from S. Agata de' Goti, now in
the Naples collection, depicts the scene as viewed a few moments
later (fig. 304)2. Pelops and Hippodameia, already mounted on
the four-horse car, are glancing backwards at Oinomaos, who,

Fig- 3°3-

helped by a couple of wreathed attendants, is about to sacrifice
the ram at an altar burning before a high pedestalled statue of
Artemis. The goddess carries in either hand a bow and a phidle;
her head-dress is topped by three letters, which yield no intelligible
sense. Behind the ram is a youthful, but unnamed, spectator with
two spears and a shield ; he too is wreathed and sits upon his
chlamys. In the upper register Myrtilos, wearing a wreath and
the long chiton of a charioteer, brings up the four-horse car of
Oinomaos. The statue of Artemis is flanked by the figures of
Poseidon and Athena, the remaining corner being filled in by a
group of Zeus with the boy Ganymedes, hoop and hoop-stick in
hand, and a daintily-dressed Aphrodite. P. Weizsacker suggests
that the attitude of Zeus, who turns his back upon the sacrifice, is

1 Ann. d. Inst. 1851 xxiii. 298 ff. pi. Q—R. See also Reinach Rip. Vases i. 290, 3,
Roscher Lex. Myth. iii. 777 f. fig. 4.

2 Arch. Zeit. 1853 xi. 496°. pi. 55. See also Reinach Rip. Vases i. 379, 1, Roscher
Lex. Myth. iii. 779 f. fig. 5. . .