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

656 The Significance of the Bull

was therefore an appropriate appellation of the deities belonging
to a bygone age. But it could also be used, as by Aischylos1, of
royalty in general. It would seem, then, that the Titans who
devoured Zagreus were simply Thracian dynasts or kings. And
we may fairly conjecture that behind the myth as it meets us in
literature and art lies a cannibal custom, in accordance with which
the chieftains of Thrace actually devoured, in part or in whole, a
dismembered child and thereby assimilated the virtue of the new-
born god2.

If the rite thus evidenced for Thrace once existed in Crete also,
we might look to find traces of it at various intermediate points in
the Greek archipelago. Nor should we look in vain. Stepping-
stones between Thrace and Crete are the islands Tenedos, Lesbos,
and Chios. All three had their tradition of men slain, if not
actually eaten, in the service of Dionysos. Porphyrios, who draws
up a long list of human sacrifices, writes : ' In Chios too they used
to rend a man in pieces, sacrificing him to Dionysos Omddios (" the
god of Raw Flesh"), as they did also in Tenedos, according to
Euelpis the Carystian3.' Clement of Alexandreia, after recording
the Lyttian custom of slaying men for Zeus, continues immediately:
' And Dosidas states that the Lesbians bring the like sacrifice to
Dionysos4. Euphrantides the seer, who before the battle of Salamis

that the Orphic Titans are never called *TtraVot or the like—the word used of this action
is regularly yv\pos, not t'itolvos (see the passages cited by Lobeck Aglaophamus i. 653 ff.,
L. Weniger in the Archiv f. Rel. 1906 ix. 241 ff.). No ancient author connects TtraVes
with riravos till we come to Eustath. in II. p. 332, 23 ff., who states—not that the Titans
got their name from rtraVos—but that t1.to.vos got its name from the Titans reduced to
dust and ashes by the thunderbolts of Zeus. In any case there can be no etymological
connexion between the two words.

1 Hesych. s.v. tltt\vo.l- /3acrtAt(5es. <Alcrxv\os §>pv£iv ins. Soping> ?) "E/cropos AijTpois.
So also Hesych. s.vv. Tcrjvrj (tlttjvt} corr. M. Schmidt)- t) paa'Chio-aa and rtTa£- evTi/nos.
7) 5vva<tt7)s. oi 5e fiao-Ckevs.

2 Cp. Folk-Lore 1905 xvi. 324 f.: ' Livy [1. 16. 4], after giving the usual tradition
that Romulus disappeared in a thunderstorm, mentions the "very obscure tale" that
he was torn to pieces by the hands of the fathers. Plutarch [v. Rom. 27] too, though
persuaded that Romulus was caught up to heaven, records the belief that the senators
had fallen upon him in the temple of Vulcan and divided his body between them, every
man carrying away a portion of it in his robe. Dionysius \ant. Rom. 2. 56] says much
the same, though he makes the senate-house the scene of the murder, and adds that
those who carried away the king's flesh in their garments buried every man his fragment
in the earth.'

3 Porph. de abst. 2. 55 —Euseb. praep. ev. 4. 16. 5 'edvov de /cat ev Xty t<£ '&2/uia8iq)
Acovijo-iij dvdpwirov diatnrLovTes, /cat ev Tevedcp, ojs (prjcrlv 'EveXircs 0 KapvcrTios (Euelpis
frag. 1 {Frag. hist. Gr. iv. 408 Muller)), cp. Euseb. de laud. Const. 64.6 c iv Xty Se
tc£ 'QfAadLcx) ALovvcrtp, dvdpcoirov 5iaa7rtbvTes, tdvov. So Orph. h. Dion. 30. 5 w^aSto^,
TpieTT), k.t.X., id. h. trieter. 52. 7 touaSte, o-KrjirTovxe, /c.r.X., Schdll—Studemund anecd.
i. 268 iiriOeTa Acovtiaov.. .42 'Q^aSiov, i. 276 'J^aaStoj, i. 282 'tip-ddios.

4 Clem. Al. protr. 3. 42. 5 p. 32, 5 f. Stahlin = Euseb. praep. ev. 4. 16. 12 /cat Aeapiovs