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

'Minoan' Bull-fights

equivalent1, was common to Zeus2 and to Dionysos3. Strabon
ends his account of the cult as follows :

'A yearly festival is held at Acharaka...on which occasion about the hour of
noon the young men from the gymnasium, stripped and anointed with oil, take
up a bull and carry it with speed to the Cave. When they let it go, it advances
a little way, falls over, and dies4.'

This strange procession is illustrated (fig. 366)5 by a copper coin

of Nysa struck by Maximus. Six naked
youths carry on their shoulders a humped
bull of gigantic size. In front of them
marches a naked flute-player, who (so far
as I can judge from a careful inspection
of the original) is linked to the bull's horn
by means of a wavy line perhaps represent-
ing a fillet. Thus all who took part in the
rite were brought into immediate contact
Fig. ggg, with the sacred animal.

The festival (panegyris) was doubtless
shared by other cities in the valley of the Maiandros6. I am
therefore inclined to surmise that a second illustration of it is
to be found on a copper of Magnesia struck under Caracalla

(fig. 367)7. A young man is seen holding
by the halter a humped bull, which goes
before him but collapses at the entrance
of a cavern. These two remarkable coin-
types in fact give the beginning and the
end of the procession described by Stra-
bon.

Somewhat similar to the Arcadian and
Lydian rites is the scene depicted on a
Flg' red-figured vase formerly in the Hamilton

1 Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 1066 n. 15.

In art Plouton often bears the cornu copiae : see C. Scherer in Roscher Lex. Myth.
i. 1787, 1800 ff., Farnell Cults of Gk. States iii. 286 pi. 32, a.

2 Orph. h. daem. 73. 3 f. Ti7\v<x /xeyav... \ irXovrodorriP, Loukian. Cronosol. 14 Ad
UXovrodoTTi k.t.X. See O. Hofer in the Jahrb.f. Philol. u. Pcidag. 1894 cxlix. 262 and
in Roscher Lex. Myth. ii. 1579, iii. 2567, who notes that Nysa was a colony of Sparta
(Strab. 650), where there was a temple of Zeus HXovaios (Paus. 3. 19. 7).

3 Carm. pop. 4. 2 Hiller ~S,e/J.eXrjL "Ia/c^e irXovTodbra.

4 Strab. 650.

5 Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Lydia pp. lxxxiii, 181 pi. 20, 10, Head Hist, num.* p. 654.

6 So Dr B. V. Head in Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Lydia p. lxxxiii.

7 Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Ionia p. 166 pi. 19, 10. Head Hist, num? p. 583 describes
the type as 'Herdsman (Eurytion?) driving bull into cavern'—a very improbable
suggestion.