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

Ba^al-tars and Zeus Tersios

601

Dion Chrysostomos, the only author who mentions this pyre, does
so in an address to the inhabitants of Tarsos1:

'What think you? If, as we may well suppose and as men declare, founders
—be they heroes or gods—often visit the states that they have founded, though
none can see them, at sacrifices and certain public festivals ; if, then, your own
first founder Herakles were to come here, say during the Pyre, which you make
for him so handsomely,—think you he would be best pleased at hearing that the
city has got this reputation?'

Dr Frazer has conjectured that ' at this festival, as at the festival
of Melcarth, the god was burned in effigy on his own pyre-.'
That may have been so : but no ancient writer actually states that
a god was burnt in effigy at Melqart's festival3, and as to Tarsos—

Dion's words rather imply that the deity was not visible at all.
In any case the erection of the Tarsian coins can hardly be
identified with the pyre of Herakles. To begin with, specimens
struck by Marcus Aurelius (fig. 467)*, Tranquillina (fig. 46S)5, etc."
show the supposed pyre covered by an elaborate baldachin as if
it were a permanent structure.

p. lxxxvi speaks with more reserve ('either a permanent monument, or the pyre' etc.).
Mr G. Macdonald in the Hunter Cat. Coins ii. 548 apparently rejects the identification
with Herakles' pyre (' Monument...surmounted by pyramidal structure,' etc.).

1 Dion. Chrys. or. 33 p. 23 f. Reiske rl av oteade, ei Kaddwep et'/cos eari nal cpaal rous
oiKicrTas rjpwas rj deovs 7ro\\&Kis eiriaTpe^ecrdaL rots avr&v iroXeis rots aXXois ovras d<pavels
£v re dvaiais /ecu tlglv eoprais dtj/moreXeaLv, eireid' 6 apXTybs v/xu>v 'Hpa/cXTjs ivapayevoLTO

rjroL Uvpas oi)<T7]S fjv iravv K<x\r)v avr<2 iroceiTe <.rj......>, acpobpa ye av avrbv rjadrjvaL

toc<xvt7]S aKovcravTa <f>wprjs; Reiske prefers to eject tjtoi as an intrusion from some
scholion.

2 Frazer Golden BougJv': Adonis Attis Osiris2 p. 99.

8 Id. ib. pp. 84—90 'raises a strong presumption, though it cannot be said to amount
to a proof, that a practice of burning a deity, and especially Melcarth, in effigy or in the
person of a human representative, was observed at an annual festival in Tyre and its
colonies.'

4 Brit. Mas. Cat. Corns Lycaonia, etc. p. 190 pi. 34, 10.

5 Ib. p. 221 pi. 37, 9, Hunter Cat. Coins ii. 555 pi. 60, 18. I figure a specimen in
the McClean collection.

6 Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Lycaonia, etc. p. 224 no. 305 Trajan Decius, p. 225 no. 310
Herennius Etruscus.

Fig. 467.

Fig. 468.