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

670

Goat instead of Bull

" Call ye the god," and his hearers shout " Iakchos, Semele's child, Giver of
Wealth1."'

What happened in answer to this evocation, we are not told. But
it is permissible to suppose that a figure representing Semele with
the infant Dionysos in her arms issued from a cave or artificial
grotto. The cornii copiae carried by the babe would mark him as
the ' Giver of Wealth.' Kephisodotos' statue of Eirene holding the
infant Ploutos was very possibly inspired by the Lenaean represen-
tation of Semele2: on late coppers of Athens that show the group
the child has a cornii copiae in his left hand3. How the cave or
grotto would be managed, we can infer from the well-known vases
illustrating the ascent of the earth-goddess. Miss Harrison in her
study of these at first conjectured ' some reminiscence of Semele4,'
and later wrote : ' We have before us unquestionably the " Bringing
up of Semele5."' I understand her to suggest in the same context
that the type as seen in the Attic vase-paintings was definitely
based on the initial rite of the Lenaia. With that I should agree0.
Hermes too was, not improbably, present at the ritual evocation7,
and to him Semele may have handed the new-born babe. If
Kephisodotos' statue of Eirene with Ploutos was inspired by the
ritual figure of Semele with Dionysos, the same sculptor's statue
of Hermes nursing the infant Dionysos8 may have been based yet
more closely on the succeeding scene at the Lenaia. And to the
Hermes of Kephisodotos the Hermes of Praxiteles was near akin.

1 Schol. Rav. Aristoph. ran. 479 /cctXei debv: ...iu rots k-qvaiKoh ayu>ffii> rod Aiovvcrov
6 dadovxos /care%WI' Xa/U7rd5a \eyei " Kaketre debv" /cat ol viraKOvovres fioGxnv " Se/xeX^te
"Ia/cxe 7rXouro56ra" {carmina popularia 5 Bergk4, versus et canlilenaepopulares 4 Hiller—•
Crusius).

2 Cp. O. Jessen in Roscher Lex. Myth. iv. 668: 'naher liegt die Annahme, die
Porpvodwpos [Aristoph. pax 520], TrXovrodoTeipa \_frag. mel. adesp. 39 Hiller—Crusius]
Eirene habe einst in Athen als Mutter des Dionysos gegolten; denn sie erscheint wie
andere fruhere Mutter (Dione, Thyone) spater auf Vasenbildern als Bakchantin im
Gefolge des Gottes [L. von Sybel in Roscher Lex. Myth. i. 1222].'

3 Imhoof-Blumer and P. Gardner Ntim. Comm. Paus. iii. 147 pi. DD, 9 f., Brit.
Mus. Cat. Coins Attica etc. p. 109 pi. 19, 5, Overbeck Gr. Plastik* ii. 8 ff. fig. 134 a.

4 Harrison Proleg. Gk. Pel.2 p. 278 f. fig. 68.

5 Harrison Themis p. 418 ff. fig. 124. '

6 But I completely disagree with Miss Harrison's description of the grotto on the
Berlin krate'r (Furtwangler Vasensamml. Berlin ii. 756 no. 264.6, Mon. d. Lnst. xii pi. 4).
She says {Themis p. 418 f.): 'We have a great mound of earth artificially covered in
with a thick coat of white. On it are painted a tree, leaf-sprays and a tortoise. From

the top of the mound rises a tree____It is a grave-mound, an omphalos-sanctuary,' etc.

I see no tortoise or grave-mound or omphalds, nothing in fact but a would-be cavern.

7 He awaits the anodos of Pherophatta on a krater at Dresden (P. Herrmann in the
Jahrb. d. kais. deutsch. arch. Lnst. 1892 vii Arch. Anz. p. i66f., Harrison Proleg. Gk.
Pel? p. 277 fig. 67).

8 Plin. nat. hist. 34. 87.