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

The closest parallel to the Dinka bull-shrine is, however, to be
sought, not in any artistic modification of the horned altar, but in
an artless custom of the country-side. Antigonos of Karystos,
c. 250 B.C. writes :

' In Egypt if you bury the ox in certain places, so that only its horns project
above the ground, and then saw these off, they say that bees fly out; for the ox
putrefies and is resolved into bees1.'

This curious method of obtaining a swarm is often mentioned by
classical authors, and lingered on through mediaeval times well
into the sixteenth century2. The fullest account of it is given by
Florentinus3, who begins by naming his authorities :

' Iobas king of the Libyans states that bees must be made in a wooden coffer;
Demokritos and Varro in the Roman tongue state that they should be made in
a house, which is even better.'

Then follows the recipe for making them. A fat bullock, thirty
months old, is confined in a narrow chamber measuring ten cubits
every way and pierced by a door and four windows. He is then
beaten till bones and flesh alike are crushed, though blood must not
be drawn. Next, every aperture in his body is stuffed up with
pitched rags, and he is laid on a heap of thyme. The door and
windows are plastered up with mud so as to exclude light and air.
After three weeks the chamber is thrown open, but care must
be taken not to admit a strong wind. When aired enough, the
relics are fastened up as before and left for ten days longer. On the
eleventh day clusters of bees will be found, while of the bullock
nothing remains but horns, bones, and hair. ' King' bees come
from the spinal marrow, or better still from the brain ; ordinary
bees from the flesh. The main idea of this singular superstition is
that the life of the bull passed into that of the bees4. As Ovid
puts it,—

One life thus slain begat a thousand lives5.

The buried bull or bull-shrine, if we may so describe it, was in
fact the centre of a vital force, which radiated outwards especially
through the head and horns. If, as I am contending, some such
custom is really presupposed by the horned altar of the Mediterranean
peoples, we can understand why the suppliant clung to its horns6

1 Antig. hist. mir. 19.

2 W. Robert-Tornow De apiimi mellisque apud veteres significatione et symbolica et
mythologica Berolini 1893 pp. 19—i%,Journ. Hell. Stud. 1895 xv. 8—10.

3 Geopon. 15. 2. 21 ff.

4 Journ. Hell. Stud. 1895 xv. 9 f.

5*Ov. fast. 1. 380 mille animas una necata dedit.
fi 1 Kings 1. 50, 51, 2.. 28.