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

Marriage of the Sun and Moon in Crete 533

The coins that represent the eagle in Europe's lap often add a
bull's head apparently affixed to the trunk of the willow (figs. 397,
398). An interesting parallel is here provided
by the Treves altar, which likewise seems to
portray a bull's head high up on a willow-tree1.
Probably the head of the fertilising bull was
hung on the trunk to ensure its continued fer-
tility, just as the whole bull was suspended and
slain on Athena's olive at Ilion (fig. 406)2. An
odd custom perhaps susceptible of the same
explanation is mentioned by Apollonios of Rhodes, who tells how
the Argonauts landed on the Circaean Plain :

And here there grew
Many wild oaks and willows in a row
On whose high tops were corpses hung by ropes
Fast-bound. For still the Colchians may not burn
Dead men with fire, nor lay them in the ground
And pile a mound above them, but must wrap
In untanned ox-hides and without their town
Hang them on trees. Howbeit earth obtains
An equal share with sky, for in the earth
Their women-folk they bury. Such their rule3.

Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 800 ff.). If Zeus became an ant in Thessaly (Clem. Al. protr. 2. 39.
6 p. 30, 1 ff. Stahlin ri be iraKiv QerraXoi; /xvpfirjKas io-Topovvrai o~efteu>, ewel tqv Ala
/jL€/uadr)Ka(rLv bjxOLwdevra /xvp/u,r)Ki rrj KX^ropos dvyarpl ^vpvfxedovcrr) ixiyr)vaL Kal M-vp/jLidova
yevvrjaai with schol. ad loc, Clem. Rom. horn. 5. T3 (ii. 184 Migne) HvpvfxeSoijcrr)
ry 'AxeAwou, pt.vpp.7ji; yevbp.euos, e£ rjs MyppLibibv, Arnob. adv. nat. 4. 26 versus.-..in
formiculam parvulam, ut Clitoris videlicet filiam Myrmidonis redderet apud Thessalos
matrem, Isid. orig. 9. 2. 75 Eratosthenes autem dicit Myrmidonas a Myrmidone duce
Iovis et Eurymedusae filio, Serv. in Verg. Aen. 2. 7 Eratosthenes dicit Myrmidonas
dictos a rege Myrmidono {leg. Myrmidone) Iovis et Eurymedonae {leg. Eurymedusae)
filio, interp. Serv. ib. a rege Myrmidono {leg. Myrmidone) Iovis et Eurimedontis {leg.
Eurymedusae) filio), he may have become a fly in Crete. He would thus have been the
Cretan (? cp. Plin. nat. hist. 21. 79) equivalent of the Philistine god worshipped at
Ekron as Ba^al Zehib, a name translated by the LXX Bda\ Mwa debs and best under-
stood of a zoomorphic deity (S. Bochart Hierozoicon ed. E. F. C. Rosenmuller Lipsiae 1796
iii. 346 f., W. Drexler in Roscher Lex. Myth. ii. 3301 ff.). On Zeus 'Xttoplvlos see infra
ch. ii § 3 (c) iv (p).

1 Supra p. 481 n. 9.

2 H. von Fritze in W. Ddrpfeld Troja und Ilion Athens 1902 ii. 491 pi. 63, 68 f.,
514—516, A. Bruckner ib. ii. 563—566, Nilsson Gr. Feste p. 235, P. Stengel Opferbrauche
der Griechen Leipzig und Berlin 19x0 p. 124 f:, J. E. Harrison Themis Cambridge [912
p. 164 f. I figure a specimen in my collection.

H. von Fritze op. cit. ii. 514 holds that, since inscriptions of Ilion mention 17 pods, the
animal hung in the tree must be a cow. But on the coins it is a bull, and it is rightly so
described by W. Wroth in the Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Troas etc. pp. 64, 66 ff. pis. 12,
10, 13, 5-

3 Ap. Rhod. 3. 200—209 hda 5e iroWal | e^eirjs irpbfiaKoL re Kal treat eKirecpvacfiv, | t&v
Kal eir aKpordrcov veKues aecprjai Kpe/xavraL | deafXLoi. eiaeri vvv yap &yos K6\xo«riv
opwpev I avepas oixofievovs Trvpl Kaie/uiev ' ov 5' £vl yo.ir\ \ ^cttl de/xis crTelXauras v■l^ep^, eirl