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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#0503

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The Fleece of Zeus

425

the attributes of Zeus Sabdzios1, I would rather suppose the scene
taken from the mysteries of that god2. Nor do I feel at all con-
fident that the line upon which the youth kneels is meant for the
contour of a fleece3.

The Roman evidence is less shaky. Terra-cotta reliefs of the
Augustan age exhibit the initiation of Herakles into the Eleusinian

Fig. 307.

mysteries as a pair of pendant panels4. In one we have the assem-
bled deities. Demeter is seated on a kiste, which is covered with a
fleece5: round the goddess, and her seat twines the sacred snake.
Behind her stands Kore ; before her, Iakchos6 in fringed chiton and
nebris, leaning upon his leafy bdcchos7 and caressing the snake
(fig. 307)8. In the other panel we have the purification of Herakles.

1 Supra p. 391 f. pi. xxvii.

2 2a/3dfios was sometimes confused with the ntipios ~2aj3au)6 {supra p. 234 n. 4: see
O. Hofer in Roscher Lex. Myth. iv. 231 and especially Eisele ib. iv. 263 f.): hence
presumably the cult-title fxeyd[\cp KvpLjqj 2e/3afi'y ay[icp] {supra p. 400 n. 6).

My friend and colleague Prof. R. H. Kennett The Co?nposiiion of the Book of Isaiah
(The Schweich Lectures 1909) London 1910 p. 61 suggests that ritual mouse-eating
(Isa. 66. 17) was a heathen practice introduced into Jewish worship, in the days of
Menelaus, perhaps from the Greek area. Possibly it was derived from the Sabdzios-
mysteries of Asia Minor.

3 I have reproduced the line as it appears in Lenormant—de Witte loc. cit.; but
Tischbein and Inghirami locc, citt. show a mere ground-line.

4 Von Rohden—Winnefeld Ant. Terrakotten iv. 1. 7 f., 261 f. pis. 45 f.

5 F. Hauser in the Rom. Mitth. 1910 xxv. 288 n. 1 cp. h. Dem. 195 f. irp'iv y ore §17
oi gdrjKev'IdfAftr] nedp' eldvia \ tttjktov edos, Kadtiirepde 8' eir' apyv<peov j3d\e K&as.

6 So Hauser ib. p. 289.

7 Supra p. 220 n. 3.

8 I figure the example in the Louvre no. 4154 after G. P. Campana Antiche opere in
 
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