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

' Minoan' Bull-fights

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find it. A banded agate in Sir Arthur Evans' collection (fig. 361)1
represents an athlete in the act of turning his somersault over
the horns of a mighty bull, which partly conceals and partly is
concealed by a patterned square. This square bears to the whole
design the same relation as the patterned oblong to the slaughter
of the Minotaur on the vases already discussed (figs. 329—331).
In short, it depicts the Labyrinth as the scene of the action2.

The essential feature of the ' Minoan' sport appears to have
been the grasping of the bull's horn or horns. Now the same
trait is found in the oldest art-types of one Thessalian and three
Cretan myths, that of Iason grappling the Colchian bulls3, that of
Herakles capturing the Cretan bull4, that of Theseus slaying the
Minotaur (cp. figs. 329, 330)5, and that of Europe borne off by
the bovine Zeus (cp. pi. xxxii, fig. 411)6. It is perhaps permissible
to suggest that behind these art-types lurks a traditional pose
of the bull-grasper. Iason and Herakles seizing the bull by the
horn or twisting a rope about its hind legs vividly recall the bull-
captors of the Vaphio cups. Theseus gripping the Minotaur by the
horn or locked with him in a deadly wrestling-bout is a figure
curiously reminiscent of the 'Minoan' cow-boy. Europe, who on
the later monuments slips off the bull's back and hovers or floats
beside him still clinging to his horn (cp. fig. 414), in effect reverts
to the airy performance of the 'Minoan' cow-girl. Such resem-
blances may of course be fortuitous ; but, given the Thessalian
and Cretan connexion, they may be vestigial.

In any case it seems probable that the religious value of the
original bull-sports lay in the athlete's contact with the horn of
a sacred bull. A clue to the meaning of such contact is,

1 Furtwangler Ant. Gemmen i pi. 6, 9, ii. 26 figured to a scale of f, A. Reichel
loc. cit. p. 87 f. fig. 4. Reichel points out that Furtwangler erroneously described the
man as about to cut the throat of the bull. But Reichel himself apparently shares Furt-
wangler's view that the bull is drinking out of a big trough !

2 It may be objected that the Labyrinth at Knossos was ill-adapted for a bull-ring
{Ami. Brit. Sch. Ath. 1902—1903 ix. 110). But Sir Arthur Evans' intaglio is said to
have come from Priene, where we have already found the Labyrinth-pattern occurring
as a coin-type [stipra p. 483). Possibly the allusion is to some Labyrinth other than
that of Knossos.

3 K. Seeliger in Roscher Lex. Myth. ii. 798"., H. Heydemann Iason in Kolchis
{Winckelmannsfest-Progr. Halle 1886).

4 A. Furtwangler in Roscher Lex. Myth. i. 2201. Cp. Theseus and the Marathonian
bull on a red-figured kylix {Brit. Mus. Cat. Vases iii. 123 no. E 105), which shows the
hero holding a club in his right hand and grasping the bull's horn with his left.

5 A. Furtwangler in the Arch. Zeit. 1884 xlii. 106 ff. pi. 8, 3 { — Kleine Schriften
Mtinchen 1912 i. 463 f. pi. 15, 3), Roscher Lex. Myth. ii. 3007 fig. 2.

6 J. Escher-Biirkli in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. vi. 1296 f. Literary references to
Europe as holding the horn are collected by L. Stephani in the Compte-rendu St. Pit.
1866 p. 124 n. 11.

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