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

660 The Significance of the Bull

Later1 we shall find reason to conclude that such was indeed the
case, and that in Tenedos Dionysos was worshipped in the form of
a double-axe. Moreover we shall have occasion to note the close
resemblance of the Tenedian axe-cult to the axe-cults of 'Minoan'
Crete.

Comparing, now, these ritual facts with the Orphic myth of
Dionysos or Zagreus done to death in bovine shape, we can hardly
doubt that in Crete too anthropophagy was early commuted into
some less horrible rite, say the rending and eating of a bull. There
was indeed much to connect the Cretan Zeus with this beast. At
Praisos, an Eteo-Cretan town with a temple of Zeus Diktazos2,
silver coins were struck c. 450—400 B.C. with the obverse type of
a cow suckling an infant, who has been commonly and rightly
identified as Zeus3 (figs. 5074, 5085). At Phaistos a stater of

Fig. 507. Fig. 508.

highly picturesque style, which may be dated c, 430 B.C., shows
Europe sitting on a rock and greeting the bull-Zeus with uplifted

paLw is 'to strike' rather than 'to rend,' cp. paLcrr-qp, 'a hammer,' and the compounds
du/xopal'aTrjs, 'IAioppcuVras, Kwopcucrrris or Kwoppaiarris, fj,7]Tpoppai<TT7)s, etc. quoted by
Meineke op. cit. i. 224.

1 Infra ch. ii § 3 (c) i (0).

2 Staphylos frag. 12 (Frag. hist. Gr. iv. 507 Midler) ap. Strab. 476 tovtwv <pr)<rl
Zrd0uXos to piev irpbs eu Awptets Kar£xeiv> T0 dva/jUKOv TZvdwvas, to 8e votlqv 'Ereo/c^ras,

elvai TroXixviov Upaaov, ottov to tov AiKrcdov Aids iepbv. See R. S. Conway in the Ann.
Brit. Sch. Ath. 1901—1902 viii. 125 ff., R. C. Bosanquet id. 231 ff., E. S. Forster id.
271 ff., R. S. Conway 1903—1904.x. 115 ff., R. M. Dawkins id. 222 f., R. C. Bosanquet
ib. 1904—1905 xi. 304 f., R. M. Burrows The Discoveries in Crete London 1907 p. 151 ff.
and p. 240 Index s.v. ' Preesos,' Sir Arthur Evans Scripta Minoa Oxford 1909 i. 105.

3 Zeus enthroned with sceptre and eagle appears on the obverse of silver coins of
Praisos from c. 400 B.C. onwards: he is often accompanied by a bull on the reverse, and
is described by Mr W. Wroth and Dr B. V. Head as Zeus Diktaios (J. N. Svoronos
Nnmismatiqiie de la Crete ancienne Macon 1890 i. 288 f. pi. 27, 21—28, 28, 1, Brit.
Mus. Cat. Coins Crete etc. p. 70 f. pi. 17, 8 f., Hunter Cat. Coins ii. 196 pi. 42, 19,
Head Hist, num.'1 p. 476).

4 E. Babelon in the Rev. Num. iii Serie 1885 hi. 16J pi. 8, 8 (Paris), J. N. Svoronos
op. cit. i. 286 pi. 27, 2, Head Hist, num? p. 475.

5 H. Weber in the Num. Chron. Third Series 1896 xvi. 18 f. pi. 2, 10, Head Hist.
num.'1 p. 475.

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