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

502

'Minoan' Bull-fights

dainties contained in the cornu copiae of Zeus. Pherekydes, the
earliest writer to give us an explicit account of this horn, says :

' Amaltheia was a daughter of Haimonios and had a bull's horn. This had
the power of providing whatever one liked to eat or drink without stint or effort1.'

The name Haimonios takes us to Thessaly2, where the ' Minoan'
bull-sports were modified into the taurokathdpsia. If my explana-
tion is sound, the said sports from first to last were designed to
promote fertility by bringing the youthful gymnasts into direct
contact with the horns of the fertilising bull3.

The same religious idea finds expression in the cult of Dionysos.
This deity at an early stage of his development was identified with

both bull4 and goat5, and, even when he had be-
come fully anthropomorphic, he was apt to main-
tain a close connexion with the sacred animal6.
Thus on coins of Mauretania struck at Siga by
Bocchus iii (50 ?—33 B.C.) we see Dionysos with
a thyrsos in his right hand and a bunch of grapes
Fig- 364- beside it: he is holding by one horn a diminutive
bull (fig. 364)7. Here and there his worshippers put themselves

publications (Tischbein Hamilton Vases iv pi. 25, A. L. Millin Galerie mythologique
Paris 1811 pi. 125, 467, Reinach Rip. Vases ii. 327, 2) are inadequate. Behind the throne
of Zeus stands Hera (Reinach loc. cit. suggests 'Hebe(?)': Welcker Alt. Denkm. iii.
305 f. had thought of Persephone behind a seated Plouton).

With the whole scene cp. a kdlpis from Ruvo at Naples (Heydemann Vasensamml.
Neapel p. 280 f. no. 2408, A. Michaelis in the Ann. d. Inst. 1869 p. 201 ff. pi. GH,
Reinach op. cit. i. 323, 1), which shows Herakles holding the cornu copiae and seated
before a standing Zeus (Michaelis loc. cit. suggests Plouton ?).

1 Pherekyd. frag. 37 {Frag. hist. Gr. i. 82 Midler) ap. schol. Soph. Track, arg.
' A/xaXdeia r)v Alp.ovlov dvydrr^p- rj k^pas eTx? ratipov. tovto 5e, cos §epei<68r)s (prjcri, 8vua/xLV
elxe TOLLxiry]v ccare fiptorbv rj iroTbv birep av eii^airb tls rrapex^LV &<j>dovbv re Kai airovov after
Apollod. 2. 7. 5 (see Jebb's ed. of Soph. Track, p. 3).

A later version made the horn of plenty that which Herakles broke off from the
tauriform Acheloios (Ov. met. 9. 85 ff., Ylyg.fab. 31, Philostr. min. imagg. 4. 3). Various
harmonists stated that Acheloios' horn was the horn of Amaltheia (Diod. 4. 35, Strab.
458, Dion. Chrys. or. 63 p. 327 Reiske), or that Acheloios had presented Herakles with
Amaltheia's horn as ransom for his own (Zenob. 2. 48, schol. //. 21. 194, Tzetz. in Lyk.
Al. 50).

2 O. Kern in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. vii. 2220, Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 341 n. 3.

3 For the transference of quality from the horns to that which touches them cp. the
belief that seed-corn, if it fell on the horns of ploughing oxen, would produce hard {i.e.
horny) grain (Theophr. decerns.plant. 4. 12. 13, Plout. symp. 7. 2. 1, Geopon. 2. 19. 4).

4 Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 1425 n. 4 collects the evidence and adds a brief biblio-
graphy. See also Farnell Cults of Gk. States v. 126.

5 Gruppe op. cit. pp. 822 n. 3 ff., 1428 n. 9m, Farnell op. cit. v. 127, 165 f.

6 Mithras in the great Mithraic myth rides the bull, grasping it by the horns, to
which he clings even when thrown off the creature's back (F. Cumont Textes et monu-
ments figures relatifs aux mysteres de Mithra Bruxelles 1896 i. 169 f., 305, id. Die
Mysterien des Mithra2 trans. G. Gehrich Leipzig 1911 p. 120 f. pi. 3, 6).

7 L. Midler Numismatique de VAncienne Afrique Copenhague 1862 iii. 97 ff. no. 9