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

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14695#0734

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Zeus and Zagreus

sacred to Rhea1 rather than to Zeus2. The requisite timber was
grown on the spot. Probably it formed part of a grove belonging
to the goddess3 and was felled with the double-axe, to which even
in the iron age a certain sanctity still attached. The planks so
hewn were fitted together with no iron nails or clamps (that would
have been an impious innovation)4, but with glue made of bull's
hide5 (for the bull was an animal form of the deity himself0).
The initiates evidently sought to become one with the re-born god,
the youthful partner of their goddess. Beginning as Kouretes,
they ended as Bacchoi. Three rites are touched upon7, the making

1 See F. Lajard Recherches sur le culte dn cypres pyramidal Paris 1854 p. 216 and
passim, Boetticher Baumktdtus pp. 486—494, Ohnefalsch-Richter Kypros p. 456
pis. 153, 154, and Index s.v. 'Cypress,' and F. Olck in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. iv.

1915—193.8.

2 Supra p. 558 n.5.

3 At Knossos were shown the foundations of Rhea's house and a cypress-grove of
ancient sanctity (Diod. 5. 66 fxvdoXoyovai yap oi Kprjres yevecrdat Kara tt]v tG>v KouprjTOjv
ifkinLav tovs Ka\ovp,ivovs Tltclvcls. tovtovs de rrjs ~Kvw<rias xwpas ex^t-v ttjv 0lk7]criv, oirovirep
'in koX vvv deiKWTCLL #e/xe\ia 'Peas oiKoireda /cat KvwapiTTuv a\<ros e/c 7ra\atou XP^V0V
av€l[xivov).

At Ortygia near Ephesos was a grove mainly composed of cypress-trees: here Leto
had brought forth her twins, while the Kouretes, standing close by on Mt Solmissos, had
scared away Hera with the clash of their weapons (Strab. 639 f.).

On a lenticular gem of rock crystal actually found in the Idaean Cave ' a female
votary is seen blowing a conch-shell or triton before an altar of the usual Mycenaean
shape. Above the altar is seen a group of three trees apparently cypresses, and im-
mediately in front of them the "horns of consecration." To the right of the altar is
a rayed symbol, to the left is apparently another altar base, with a conical excrescence,
and behind the votary another tree' (Sir Arthur Evans in the Journ. Hell. Stud. 1901
xxi. 141 f. fig. 25).

4 The best collection of relevant facts is in Frazer Golden Bough:i: Taboo pp. 225—
236 (' Iron tabooed'), especially ib. p. 230 (' Iron not used in building sacred edifices').
Dr Frazer cites inter alia Plin. nat. hist. 36. 100 Cyzici et buleuterium vocant aedificium
amplum, sine ferreo clavo ita disposita contignatione, ut eximantur trabes sine fulturis ac
reponantur.

5 Miss Harrison Proleg. Gk. Rel.2 p. 481 writes: 'The shrine of Idaean Zeus...was
cemented with bulls' blood. Possibly this may mean that at its foundation a sacred bull
was slain and his blood mixed with the mortar ; anyhow it indicates connection with
bull-worship.' The suggestion of bull's blood is over-fanciful. Stephanus Thes. Gr.
Ling. vii. 1876 B translated ravpoderos correctly enough by ' Glutine taurino compacta' ;
for ravpoKoXXa, as my colleague Mr D. S. Robertson points out to me, was simply glue,
best made from the hides (Dioscor. 3. 91 (101) p. 441 Sprengel, cp. Aristot. hist. an.
3. 11. 517 b 28 ff., alib.) or from the ears and genitals of bulls (Plin. nat. hist. 28. 235 f.).
Nevertheless such a substance may well have had a religious value in a shrine where the
bull was of primary importance.

6 Infra p. 650 and ch. i § 6 (g) xxi (f, k).

7 Miss Harrison has discussed the Zagreus-rites with much insight and with a most
helpful accumulation of anthropological parallels in her Proleg. Gk. Rel.2 p. 478 ff.,
Themis pp. 14 ff., 51 ff., 56 ff., 156 f., cp. Mr F. M. Cornford in Themis p. 247 f. and
Prof. G. Murray ib. p. 345. These scholars have not, however, seen or at least
expressed what I believe to have been an essential element, perhaps originally the
 
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