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

Zeus and Human Omophagy 651

veritable embodiments of the god they must lead a life of
ceremonial purity, being so far as men might be husbands of
the goddess.

It remains to ask, Whence came the name Zagreus ? and What
was its significance ? The word appears to be an ethnic properly
denoting the god (Gilgames ?) of Mount Zdgros or Zdgron, the
great mountain-range that parts Assyria from Media1. This
name, we may suppose, travelled from Mesopotamia via Phoinike
to Crete at about the same time and along much the same route as
the Assyrian influences manifest in our shield. From Crete it
would readily pass to Argos2, and so northwards to the rest of
Greece. On reaching Greek soil it was naturally misinterpreted
as the ' Mighty Hunter3,' a title applicable enough to a prince
ripped up by a wild boar4. The Cretan god, in fact, so closely
resembled his oriental counterpart that he borrowed both his name
and his art-type. On the Idaean shield we see Zeus redivivus,
already perhaps known as Zagreus, in the guise of Gilgames, the
Biblical Nimrod, ' a mighty hunter before the LORD5.'

(e) The Cretan Zeus and Human Omophagy.

Dr Frazer after examining the traces of Adonis-worship in
Syria, Kypros, etc. reaches the conclusion6

'that among Semitic peoples in early times, Adonis, the divine lord of the city,
was often personated by priestly kings or other members of the royal family,
and that these his human representatives were of old put to death, whether

periodically or occasionally, in their divine character____As time went on, the

cruel custom was apparently mitigated in various ways, for example, by sub-
stituting an effigy or an animal for the man, or by allowing the destined victim
to escape with a merely make-believe sacrifice.'

belief in impregnation by means of fire. The use of torches in bridal processions may
have been magical as well as utilitarian.

1 This rather obvious derivation was first, I think, noted by Miss G. Davis in The
Classical Association of Ireland: Proceedings for 1911—1912 p. 23 f. ('Is it too much
to see in Zagreus a cult-name of Dionysos or Soma as " the God of Zagros" ?').

2 At Argos there was a temple of Dionysos KprjtTLos, containing a Kepa/uea aopbs of
Ariadne (Paus. 2. 23. 7 f.) ; and it was to the cycle of Argive myth that the Alkniaionis
belonged.

3 Et. mag. p. 406, 46 ff. 7iaypevs...7rapa to fa, IV y 6 iravv aypevuv, et. Gud. p. 227,
37 and Cramer anecd. Oxon. ii. 443, 8 Ztdypevs1 6 /meydXws aypevwv.

4 Farnell Cults of Gk. States v. 129 n. b says: ' The explanation of the word as " the
mighty hunter"—which Euripides may have had in mind in his phrase in the Bakchai
[1192], 6 yap avat, dypevs—is not plausible on religious grounds.' But Dr Farnell has
apparently not noticed Dr Rendel Harris' discovery of an Adonis-like Zeus in Crete.

0 Gen. 10. 9.

6 Frazer Golden Boughz: Adonis Attis Osiris2 p. 182.