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

432 The Bull and the Sun in Egypt

thereupon did reverence to the victor, but he had earned for himself
the hatred of the Egyptians. And—to conclude in the words of
Aelian—' if any one thinks it a scandal to drop from a zoological
discussion into an occasional folk-tale, he is a fool1.'

Apis too (fig. 310)2 had to be black beyond other bulls3. He
was moreover distinguished by as many as twenty-nine bodily
marks4, of which a few are reported by classical authors. Thus
Herodotos5 states that Apis had a white triangle on his forehead6,
a beetle under his tongue7, an eagle on his back, and double hairs
in his tail8. Various marks brought him into connexion with the

sun and moon. Since he was sacred
to the moon rather than the sun9, this
twofold characterisation might have
been thought superfluous. But some
persons regarded Mnevis as the father
of Apis10. And Porphyrios explains
that, as the moon gets her light from
the sun, so Apis must needs have the
tokens of both luminaries : the sun, he
adds, is evidenced by the blackness of
the bull's body and by the beetle under
his tongue, the moon by the halved and
the gibbous signs11. Others say that the most important mark of all

1 Ail. de nat. an. 1 r. 11. Id. ib. 12. 3 (cp. Maneth. frag. 65 {Frag. hist. Gr. ii.
592 f. Miiller) and G. Maspero The Passing of the Empires London 1900 p. 246 n. 5)
states that in the reign of this Bokchoris a monstrous lamb with two heads, four horns,
eight legs and two tails spoke in human speech and predicted that Upper and Lower
Egypt would be disgraced by the rule of a stranger.

2 Drawn from a bronze statuette in the possession of Mr F. W. Green. Total height
3^ inches.

3 Porphyrios ap. Eus. p?-aep. ev. 3. 13. 2, cp. Hdt. 3. 28, Strab. 807.

4 Ail. de nat. an. n. 10.

5 Hdt. 3. 28.

6 For XevKov rerpayiopov of the MSS. we should read, with Stein, \evKov tl TpLywvov.
The description of the historian is thus brought into agreement with extant figures of
Apis : see Stein ad loc. Strab. 807 says merely 5ia\evKos to ixerw-rcov.

7 For eirl de t% yXtbcra-rj Kavdapov of the MSS. we should read, with Jablonski and Stein,
uirb de k.t.X. : cp. Porphyrios ap. Eus. praep. ev. 3. 13. 2 6 virb rrju yXQrrav k&vdapos,
Plin. nat. hist. 8. 184 nodus sub lingua quern cantharum appellant.

8 Mela 1. 9 cauda linguaque dissimilis aliorum, Souid. s.v. "Aindes' ...arjfxeiop exoures irepl
tt]i> ovpav Kal tt)v yXQaaav. Larcher cites from schol. Ptolem. tetrabibl. p. 2 the statement
that a cow's tail waxes and wanes with the moon : cp. supra p. 429 n. 3 of the ram.

9 Macrob. Sat. 1. 21. 20 bos Apis in civitate Memphi solis instar excipitur is a partial
and misleading assertion. See supra p. 431 n. 2. But cp. infra p. 435 f. Kyrillos in Oseam
5. 8 f. (cp. 10. 5) states that the Egyptians regarded Apis as aeXrivrjs p.ei> renvov, r/X/ou de
enyovov.

10 Plout. de Is. et Os. 33.'

11 Porphyrios ap. Eus. praep. ev. 3. 13. 2, Kyrillos in Oseam 5. 8f.