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

634 The Significance of the Bull

the bull was attached to the storm-god Adad or Ramman1; but it
was as Zeus A dados or Iupiter Heliopolitanus that he reached his
apogee2. At Boghaz-Keui3 and Malatia4 the bull appears as a
supporter of the Hittite father-god ; but this deity, still mounted
on a bull, made his triumphal progress through Europe under the
title of Iupiter Dolickenus5. Thus from start to finish, through two
or more millenniums and across three continents, the bull retained
its hold upon popular reverence.

What gave the creature this claim to universal respect ? What
is his significance in ancient religion ? Prof. Gilbert Murray in a
recent lecture has told us6: 'we modern town-dwellers,'he says,
'have almost forgotten what a real bull is like. For so many
centuries we have tamed him and penned him in, and utterly
deposed him from his place as lord of the forest. The bull was
the chief of magic or sacred animals in Greece, chief because of his
enormous strength, his rage, in fine his mana, as anthropologists
call it.' Perhaps we may venture to narrow down this answer
without loss of probability. Beyond other beasts the bull was
charged with Zengungskraft, gendering power and fertilising
force7. That, I take it, is the ultimate reason of his prestige
among the cattle-breeding peoples of the Mediterranean area.

1 Supra p. 576 ff. 2 Supra p. 549 ff. 3 Supra p. 604 f.

4 Infra p. 640 fig. 500. 5 Supra p. 604 ff.

6 G. Murray Four Stages of Greek Religion New York 1912 p. 33. Cp. Harrison
Themis p. 156 f. and p. 548 Index s.v. 'Bull.' Prof. Murray's statement strikes me as
more just and true to nature than, say, the eloquent sermon preached by Dion Chrysostom
{or. 2 p. 69 ff. Reiske) on the Homeric text //. 2. 480—-483.

7 See e.g. Aristot. hist. an. 5. 2. 540a 6 f. (bulls), 6. 21. 575a 13 ff. (bulls), 6. 18.
572 a 8 ff. and 3 iff. (cows), Ail. de nat. an. 10. 27 (cows), Horapoll. hierogl. 1. 46
(bulls). Very significant is the use of ravpos = rb aldoiov rod dvdpos (Souid. s.v. ravpos,
schol. Aristoph. Lys. 217) or rb yvvaLKeiov aidolov (Phot. lex. s.vv. aapapop, ravpov,
Souid. s.v. o-apaj3oi>, Hesych. s.v. ravpos) or oppos etc. (Poll. 2. 173, Galen, introductio
seu medicus 10 (xiv. 706 Kiihn), Eustath. in II. pp. 259, 3 f., 527, 43 ff., 906, 60, id. in
Od. p. 1871, 43 f., et. mag. p. 747, 40 ff.) or irai§epao-rr)s (Hesych. s.v. ravpos), and the
word aravpwros (Aisch. Ag. 244, Aristoph. Lys. 217 f., alib.), if not also \ao~ravpos (on
which, however, see L. Meyer Handb. d. gr. Etym. iv. 580, Boisacq Diet, e'tytn. de la
Langue Gr. p. 581 f., Walde Lat. etym. Worterb. p. 326 s.v. 'lascivus').

Amulets combine the bull's head with the phallos in several ways (O. Jahn in the
Ber. sacks. Gesellsch. d. Wiss. Phil.-hist. Classe 1855 p. 58 n. 116 pi. 5, 4 and 5,
E. Labatut in Daremberg—Saglio Diet. Ant. i. 257 figs. 308, 309, I. Scheftelowitz in the
Archiv f. Rel. 1912 xv. 469 n. 3).

W. Schmitz Das Stiersymbol des Dionysos Koln 1892 p. 1 f. : 'Der Stier scheint bei
den Griechen ursprunglich das Symbol der Fruchtbarkeit gewesen zu sein. Die Frucht-
barkeit in der Natur wird nun aber nach griechischer Anschauung hervorgebracht
entweder drnxh den Erdboden, oder durch die Feuchtigkeit des Wassers, oder durch die
hauptsachlich von der Sonne ausgehende Warme. Wenn also die Griechen in ihrer
Mythologie und Kunst einzelnen Gottheiten das Symbol des Stieres beilegen, so bedeutet
dieses Bild bald die Fruchtbarkeit des Erdbodens, bald die des gedeihenspendenden